Theory: If Biden wins, his pandemic messaging will be better than Trump’s shitshow, but Europe’s experience points to the limitation of pre-vaccine policy responses to the virus in a populous free society that isn’t on an island and doesn’t have collective memory of disease.

First, it’s dangerous to compare numbers between countries or even between US states because the testing methods and availability are different. With that massive grain of salt, here are some very brief observations.

France is instructive. The US’ overall impact has been about 50% worse proportionally, but France’s new COVID cases are 2.5 times greater by proportion than the US at the moment. And that’s with a “grownup” government that actively promotes mask wearing and social distancing.

Angela Merkel’s Germany has done better than Macron’s France but they’re spiking too. 18,000 new cases per day is only slightly improved over the US’ 90,000 new cases per day given the populations of the two countries. Again, testing differs, so there are important caveats.

The 2nd wave suggests large Western countries will struggle to control the virus until we have a vaccine. Biden would do a better job of reassuring the public in the meantime, and he would be better at managing the rollout (though political polarization would work against him).

Trump’s greatest failure during the pandemic has been the thing he has always failed at—empathy. That matters. Could he have crafted better policies too? Absolutely. But the disease needed to be arrested in spring, and no one was ready—not the US, not Europe, and not the WHO.