I wonder if after this is all over if there are nations that did nothing that can more or less be used as control models to compare various interventions to see how well they worked compared to nations that did nothing.
Even Russia is starting to do lockdowns, and they were holding out on this issue and pretending it wasn’t happening.
Then again, any nation that does nothing is very likely to be a very impoverished, corrupt dictatorship without functioning health care infrastructure, so you probably can’t extrapolate too much for middle and high income nations based on how they are affected by the pandemic.
The closest thing I can think of is Brazil. While I’m sure many people within the nation are taking it seriously, the president of that country, Jair Bolsonaro, seems to have been more dismissive of coronavirus than any other world leader.
I completely understand why Bolsonaro was elected. The country was ravaged by horrible crime and people were desperate for security, so of course this choleric military strongman appealed to them. It should be a lesson in why moderates need to step up to fill that void of security, in my opinion - if they don’t, someone else will, and that someone will be guys like this. He makes Donald Trump look like Mr. Rogers.