From Infidel753:
At least a third of our country’s population labors under the mental sway of decades of militant anti-intellectualism and science-denial emanating from fundamentalist pulpits and right-wing fake-media propaganda outlets. With their president, their red-state governors, and their pastors all chivvying them along, they are not going to listen to Dr. Fauci or the scientific establishment. They’ll go back to church, back to the beaches, back to everything else they’re so furious about having to stay home from. It’s already starting to happen. And among those populations, the pandemic will explode.
Most other advanced nations don’t suffer from this problem to anything like the same degree because, to be blunt, they have less religion, better education, and a greater deference to expertise. I know it’s contrary to the American character to be deferential to anything, and by and large this is a positive trait — but in dealing with a biological crisis, it’s just a matter of common sense to recognize that people with years of medical or scientific training and experience understand the problem better than preachers, politicians, or businessmen.