WE'D HAVE DONE BETTER IF WE HAD A PRESIDENT:

To explain this divergence, I spent the last week speaking with Canadian public health experts who had been following the situation in the two countries closely. These experts varied in their take on their own country's performance during the pandemic, assessments ranging from middle of the pack by global standards to one of the very best in the world.

But they all shared the same view of the difference between the United States and Canada: the Canadian policy response has been orders of magnitude better than the American equivalent.

"We have a federal government that is supporting provinces' responses," says David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto. "You have a chief executive who is directly undermining the public health response."

There are a number of factors that have enabled Canada to perform at a higher level than the United States, including more consistent pre-virus funding for public health agencies and a universal health care system. But one of the most important seems to have been a difference in political leadership.

The American response has become infected by partisan politics and shot through with federal incompetence. Meanwhile, Canada's policies have been efficiently implemented with support from leaders across the political spectrum. The comparison is a case study in how a dysfunctional political system can quite literally cost lives.

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