CV and mad panic behaviour

[Mav]

It is a big difference given the relative distances and ease of travel access.  Moreover, our comparatively tiny population; i.e. Canada and the United States radically different death rates.  Multitude of reasons

Really? Americans might believe we’re all Crocodile Dundees who walk around in rural areas while kangaroos hop around close by. We know different. About 80% or more of us live in major coastal cities. These cities aren’t greatly different to US cities. Much of their country also has low-density country areas. Hell, the State of Wyoming only has a total population of about 500,000. Initially, the rural-dominated Red States were fairly untouched by Covid but now they’re in it up to their eyeballs.

Maybe Canada handled Covid much better than the US? After all, being a much colder country on the whole, its population was much more likely to congregate inside to take refuge from the snow and wind and the US has found that winter has been a problem for this reason. Maybe Canadians wear masks?

As for the ease of travel access, Australia had considerable tourist and business traffic, including direct flights from China. We had to deal with cruise ships. The ease of travel access is irrelevant. The only issue is whether there was an inflow of people from overseas. The virus has never cared whether those people have had to travel for days, hours or minutes. Once established in a population a small number of cases can explode exponentially. It’s then a question of whether authorities can suppress it successfully. The US has failed spectacularly.

Only Trumpists would try to blame Mexicans for bringing Covid across the border. Their cases came from people flying in from Europe and China to NY and other major cities. The US could have restricted that travel but chose not to do it. Even the China ban was porous as Americans were able to go there and back at will. Some 40,000 people flew in from China after the ban was imposed.

Simply put, pandemics cross water given air and sea travel. Whether it runs rampant depends on the response to it.