@Jesjohns

In normal times, I don't think the world would have locked down. They might have realized something was up and isolated the elderly and vulnerable.

But here, we have the dynamic between Trump and the media (i.e. the fake news). When Covid19 came, if Trump didn't lock down, they would be hyperventilating over every death, showing crying relatives on the news nightly, and saying how its all Trump's fault...and possibly succeeded at swaying public opinion against him.

Trump saw that coming a mile away and went into full lockdown mode. The other countries witnessing this were thus forced tot lock down too. How could they just sit around and let people die when the *US was doing all this?

So, IMO, this is what happened. Were it not for Trump vs the fake news, the whole world would have acted much like Sweden.