Coronavirus: America’s roots explain the failure of the pandemic

JEveryone knows Buffalo Bill, Jesse James or Billy the Kid, they are familiar with the stories of cowboys or ranchers, gold diggers or bandits who made their way west from the eastern United States. Especially in the 19th century they conquered larger and larger parts of the vast country and subjugated ancient indigenous tribes. The era of the Wild West.

This era has not only been treated in countless books and movies in a popular and mostly transfigured way. It is also seen as a time when special characteristics and behaviors of Americans developed. And these, as three economists have shown in one study, are primarily responsible for the fact that fighting the corona pandemic in the US is so difficult.

For their study, Samuel Bazzi and Martin Fiszbein of Boston University and Mesay Gebresilasse of Amherst College first divided the counties, that is, the administrative districts of the US, based on the length of their experience as a border region. Because the conquest of the west lasted for many decades, the westernmost counties remained for years or decades on the so-called border, that is, in the border area between the area controlled by the settlers and the vastness of the prairie.

To do this, they analyzed the period between 1790 and 1890 – at that time, after the massacre of the United States Army of the Lakota Indians, the time of the Frontier was officially declared over, there were no more uninhabited lands, it was said at that moment. Economists defined the border as the line beyond which the population density was less than two people per square kilometer.

They see the area up to 100 kilometers in front and with a maximum of six inhabitants per square kilometer as a border region. They then calculated how many years each county had been in the Frontier area. Because they assume that the intensity of this experience has left its mark on the culture of a region to this day.

The historian Frederick Jackson Turner had already postulated in 1893 that the Frontier period was formative for the American way of thinking. “The border is the fastest and most effective line of Americanization,” he wrote at the time. In this area, the European settler becomes an American. “Nature shapes the colonist.”

Americans are characterized by tough individualism

According to this, typical American individualism, for example, goes back to these experiences: President Hoover (1929-1933) spoke of “tough individualism,” that is, “tough” or “wild” individualism.

Distrust of any state interference is also based on Frontier’s experience, because the settlers were mostly completely alone, with no nearby state institution, and joint action with neighbors rarely made sense, as they often moved early. . . They were all by her side.

These traits have many advantages and were particularly helpful in the economic development of the United States. The willingness to risk something or face something without planning for it forever can be traced back to searching for new things, to accepting setbacks. All of this certainly contributed to the economic success of the country.

But when it comes to fighting a pandemic, what is most needed is common sense. Because it is not just about protecting yourself, but, as the example of masks shows particularly well, especially about protecting others through their personal behavior. And this is where American individualism and selfishness become a problem.

This was already demonstrated in 2015 by the economist Werner Troesken in his book “The smallpox of freedom.” American individualism has gotten in the way of effective control of smallpox, typhoid and yellow fever in the United States, he argues.

Because while in Europe there was generally a mandatory vaccination, something like that contradicted the American understanding of freedom as it had been formed in the Wild West. As a result, many more people died from these diseases in the United States than in Europe, for example.

Something similar is happening again, in the corona pandemic, and the three economists Bazzi, Fiszbein and Gebresilasse show that there is a direct connection to the Frontier experience. Because they compared the counties, which they had ordered according to their respective border era, with various measures to combat the pandemic.

On the one hand, they investigated how many people in the counties adhered to the rules of distance. Mobile phone data showed how much mobility had decreased. On the other hand, they consulted data from surveys on the use of masks, and included the respective measures of the states or municipalities, for example, company closures and shutdowns.

“Counties with longer historical borderline experiences show less mask use, less social distancing, and fewer non-pharmaceutical interventions,” according to the result of the analysis. The latter means blocking measures.

In counties with more Frontier experiences, rejection of science is higher

“The public health response to Covid-19 was significantly weaker in areas of the US with a longer border history.” To rule out that this is due to other things, like climate or population composition, they also have the data for that checked. Such influences are not statistically relevant.

Also, in counties that are heavily influenced by the Frontier experience, distrust of science is particularly high, as the study shows. “Historically, the border zone was characterized by novel and unsafe conditions, under which traditions and rules of thumb that were acquired elsewhere were often inadequate,” the economists write in explanation.

Instead, ingenuity and ingenuity were called for, something that made America great. But this has become a cultural opposition to established norms and hierarchies, including science based on them.

Thus, economists come to the conclusion: “Our study shows that tough individualism, with its deep roots in American history, not only hampers voluntary reactions, but also public policy to combat the spread of Covid- 19 “.

And this ultimately affects the entire country, not just counties with long border experience. Because even if other counties were quite successful in fighting pandemics, the virus doesn’t stop at administrative borders.

And there is something else you notice in passing: In those regions that are particularly heavily influenced by the border spirit, the Republican Party is particularly strong. Because he has largely adopted these attitudes in recent years, especially Donald Trump. This also explains its success in these regions.