As the global battle against COVID-19 progresses, it is beginning to reveal deep fault lines in the national psyches of countries that are facing the prospect of high infection rates. India has acted aggressively by shutting down international travel routes and imposing a nationwide lockdown, even if it has failed to contain the economic fallout of the it for millions of poor. China also implemented a harsh shutdown, initially of Wuhan and other areas of Hubei province and then more broadly. Italy, Spain and France, countries that have seen surges in infection cases that have not been witnessed anywhere else outside China, also implemented lockdown measures that were perceived as unavoidable even if draconian.
Along with the U.K. to a certain extent, Brazil and Mexico, it is the U.S. that has most been an outlier to this global willingness of governments to undertake a forced implementation of social distancing norms through a lockdown on all but essential economic activities. Since COVID-19 started impacting the U.S. in January, President Donald Trump has swung between two contradictory messages: downplaying the risks of the virus hitting the American people and economy badly and hinting that they ought to self-regulate their collective and individual behaviour to slow its spread.
To understand the possible rationale of an approach that seems to defy the logic of flattening the COVID-19 curve, it may be necessary to understand better the spirit of the rugged individualism that deeply underpins American society, economy and broader national psyche. It is that spirit that animates the visceral debates over the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment regarding the right to bear arms, to let people protect themselves against the tyranny of government.
When, as the U.S. correspondent of this newspaper, I covered the intensely partisan 2010 debates over former President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare reform policy, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), I saw how it was for many Americans the idea that the government could “mandate” anything, even enrolment in an insurance programme, that was more galling, even more than the idea that it was one political party or the other that was scoring points in Congress over the ensuing nastiness around the bill.
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Part of the problem that hobbled and seemed to prematurely age Mr. Obama through the struggle to get the ACA passed remains today — under the federalist system of the U.S., States still enjoy disproportionate powers that could, especially over local enforcement questions such as a lockdown, limit Washington’s options. The most worrying aspect, in terms of the U.S.’ ability to gain a measure of control over the proliferation of new COVID-19 cases, is that the limits to the power of the federal government to impose quarantines has been deeply institutionalised, including in law. For example, the President is not permitted to force any State Governor to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses where multitudes might gather, including bars, restaurants, and theatres. Similarly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not have the authority to ban inter-state travel.
In this backdrop it is possible that each U.S. State will only contemplate lockdown measures when its local administration deems the infection to have spiralled to a level where free choice over movement of persons can no longer be tolerated. For many across the country, that may be too late.
