while we can’t restrict movement by law, we do largely by cost and distance.
and to look at governmental responses here – especially because the federal response has been so actively harmful – you’d have to look at the state response, and each state is very different.
my point is just that per-capita country numbers are going to be just as meaningless as per-country absolute numbers for comparison’s sake if you don’t take into account geographic, political, and population differences within each country.
example: you can learn a lot more about the us response by subtracting the greater nyc area. it has a unique regional pattern and enough people to obscure the bigger picture.
anyway, im simply discounting that raw population numbers are any more useless or useful than per-capita rates.
they’re both equally fine and equally useless for meaningful comparative policy analysis.
a real analysis of different responses is going to be a long term matter for research. in the meantime, either or both can give good food for thought.
