The Failure of the Proctocracies

Crawford Kilian, who publishes the excellent H5N1 blog (which I've been following for many years), has posted an opinion piece in which he discusses how different types of governments have responded to the pandemic. I think he's hit the nail on the head with this one. He didn't coin the term "proctocracy", incidentally, although it's the first time that I've encountered it. I will be using it more often. 

If we can draw conclusions from today's numbers, it's that proctocracies (governments run by assholes) respond abysmally  to pandemics. Parliamentary democracies may or may not do well. But governments run by competent people, democracies or autocracies, can get their countries through the first wave with minimal casualties.