# America implements another country’s COVID plan with NO changes. Which are we best off going with?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-implements-another-country-s-covid-plan-with-no-changes-which-are-we-best-off-going-with/917673>\
**Category:** The Quarantine Zone\
**Tags:** covid-quarantine\
**Created:** [August 9, 2020, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-implements-another-country-s-covid-plan-with-no-changes-which-are-we-best-off-going-with/917673 "2020-08-09T22:43:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-implements-another-country-s-covid-plan-with-no-changes-which-are-we-best-off-going-with/917673/1 "2020-08-09T22:43:49Z")

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Something I was curious about. Assume that government would have to directly request and get any suspensions of current American law and policy that the plan would require.

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**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2020, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-implements-another-country-s-covid-plan-with-no-changes-which-are-we-best-off-going-with/917673/2 "2020-08-09T23:54:10Z")

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Are we doing this now, or back at the beginning of the year?

We could do a lot worse than simply starting with [Taiwan’s response](https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/jama/0/jvp200035supp1_prod.pdf?Expires=2147483647&Signature=bIZCLS7ZLWTJd~U~H40JgiEGdFb3ggVUJpBvJ7KdANK7HgK1zaj4uWHvqweGym1nWfO~nXt9Y5i1vX79pF7zjjqfzmJAy3udTdpVVZQe07xnQIPcBMXLwZ5XjgTO8yKFXVIpxsXhrmOu8sGSpKiEmQ86ZCKfOTar7fMAGmUCtjiYVFwf31K3REWAA-r3hZyoZpqz3QKpVgpsRpF9fV9thQCq0~yvbvRKTH4PcoB~CZgmXH7rpVb6bILXQn5zBCphf6pyLAa4zIebUEKfCdCYdSdi9LeIEUsesqsYpNWgHJcr4K1LC0hFlst0RHQz-vZ7I-OvrX~5jel6zjjtuDQzjQ__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA).

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**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-implements-another-country-s-covid-plan-with-no-changes-which-are-we-best-off-going-with/917673/3 "2020-08-12T22:09:53Z")

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If right now - we’d have to go by China’s. Since America is already badly hit, it would be damage control, not damage prevention. We need to “Wuhan” the entire nation. (Then again, China is an ill-suited example because even at its worst, the outbreak was fairly local, not nationwide.)

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**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\
**Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/america-implements-another-country-s-covid-plan-with-no-changes-which-are-we-best-off-going-with/917673/4 "2020-08-13T11:27:21Z")

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Pretty much any plan worked, in large part, because they could draw on unity, and motivate compliance with best practices. Both to protect each other, and to subdue the spread so they could begin reopening their economies.

The American ‘don’t tell me what to do!’ attitude doesn’t help, of course, but neither does an already deeply divided country. But having a highly divisive leader, is probably an insurmountable obstacle to success, for this sort of thing, using any plan, in my humble opinion.