The novel coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on public health in most countries, but it has caused particular destruction in five of the most populous and powerful democracies in the world: Brazil, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and the United States. These states have five of the highest death tolls and caseloads from COVID-19 of any countries, and all have struggled for any control of the pandemic.
Democracy itself is not the reason for their public health failures. Other democracies, from consolidated and wealthy ones such as Germany and Taiwan to politically shaky and middle-income ones such as Thailand, have developed effective responses that have minimized the virus’s toll.
Some democracies, such as Australia and Canada, have not only produced effectual public health responses but have gone months at a time in parts of their countries without any domestic transmission. Several authoritarian states, such as Vietnam, have adopted policies that curtailed the virus’s spread; other authoritarian states, including Iran and Russia, have failed in managing the pandemic