However, I am a dual US|EU (Croatian) citizen living in Croatia. I am culturally American.
The US had the expertise, technological capacity, and economic investment capacity to be able to eradicate the virus. Very few governments have similar resources and the ability to scale like the US government, which is quite unique. The issue was the political party that we had in place, with their recent neoliberalism. We also have an uncooperative public, that is unwilling to take temporary pain to minimize a ton more pain (from the virus) for the future.
Croatia actually has great public health infrastructure, and also has a cooperative public that follows public health advice and orders. We also have brave politicians (a lot of them were officers in the Croatian Homeland War) that are willing to take bold, unpopular political risks. They will take one for the team, if that is what it takes.
Early on in the pandemic, Croatia came very close to eliminating the virus, and was rated by Oxford as having the strictest government response (I believe in its first review/publication of the metric?). You could not leave your neighborhood without a digital pass issued by the government, which was only given out for absolutely necessary reasons (e.g. medical care). That’s right: the Croatian police had each neighborhood cordoned off and barricaded, so you could not effectively leave without a digital pass (attempting to illegally leave would mean a big fine!). Croatia also had 30 days of food and supplies for all of its citizens in a government warehouse. Pricing was fixed for critical supplies such as food, and still is, which helps prevent panic buying. Also, if you test positive for corona, you will be issued a rješenje (a government administrative decision) ordering you to quarantine for 14 days. Besides being very cooperative, Croatians would not think of breaking quarantine, as the vast majority cannot afford to. The first violation is a 1,000 Euro fine. The second violation is a 16,000 Euro fine. Oh yeah, the police will stop by your apartment multiple times randomly to check on you to see if you are actually quarantined.
Croatia failed because they chose tourist season over attempting to eradicate the virus.
> Croatia failed because they chose tourist season over attempting to eradicate the virus.
One thing I want to see get researched the next few years is the way the slavic countries pretty much completely avoided the first wave that hit many other parts of Europe so bad, only to then get hit (in some cases much more severely) by the second and third waves.
Since this also happened to less touristy countries like B&H, Bulgaria and Slovakia I do think it is more complicated than that. (But I’m in another part of EU so I might be missing something.)
"According to data from the Department of Veteran's Affairs, approximately 405,000 Americans died in the Second World War while 36,000 lost their lives in the Korean War. The Vietnam War resulted in another 58,000 deaths with the collective toll of all three conflicts coming in at around half a million. As of February 23, 2021, the Johns Hopkins University lists 500,310 Americans as having died from Covid-19. If a minute of silence was held for every death during the pandemic, it would take nearly a year - 347 days - to honor all the people the U.S. has lost."
However, I am a dual US|EU (Croatian) citizen living in Croatia. I am culturally American.
The US had the expertise, technological capacity, and economic investment capacity to be able to eradicate the virus. Very few governments have similar resources and the ability to scale like the US government, which is quite unique. The issue was the political party that we had in place, with their recent neoliberalism. We also have an uncooperative public, that is unwilling to take temporary pain to minimize a ton more pain (from the virus) for the future.
Croatia actually has great public health infrastructure, and also has a cooperative public that follows public health advice and orders. We also have brave politicians (a lot of them were officers in the Croatian Homeland War) that are willing to take bold, unpopular political risks. They will take one for the team, if that is what it takes.
Early on in the pandemic, Croatia came very close to eliminating the virus, and was rated by Oxford as having the strictest government response (I believe in its first review/publication of the metric?). You could not leave your neighborhood without a digital pass issued by the government, which was only given out for absolutely necessary reasons (e.g. medical care). That’s right: the Croatian police had each neighborhood cordoned off and barricaded, so you could not effectively leave without a digital pass (attempting to illegally leave would mean a big fine!). Croatia also had 30 days of food and supplies for all of its citizens in a government warehouse. Pricing was fixed for critical supplies such as food, and still is, which helps prevent panic buying. Also, if you test positive for corona, you will be issued a rješenje (a government administrative decision) ordering you to quarantine for 14 days. Besides being very cooperative, Croatians would not think of breaking quarantine, as the vast majority cannot afford to. The first violation is a 1,000 Euro fine. The second violation is a 16,000 Euro fine. Oh yeah, the police will stop by your apartment multiple times randomly to check on you to see if you are actually quarantined.
Croatia failed because they chose tourist season over attempting to eradicate the virus.