Professor Frances Lee says Italy set the precedent as the first democracy to impose a COVID lockdown, proving it’s possible in free societies.
#Covid #Italy
#Covid #Italy
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00:00Now, Professor, even if people were wary of information coming out of China, as is often
00:04the case in the West, Italy then had the first, was the first democratic country, I guess,
00:10to create its own lockdown policy.
00:13And that seemed to reinforce what China was doing, didn't it?
00:18Absolutely.
00:19The Italian lockdown, which was the first nationwide lockdown, demonstrated to democracies
00:25around the world that it was possible to impose measures such as lockdowns in a democratic
00:32country, and that they would be popular.
00:36And in fact, there was a great clamoring for a similar action in other countries as they
00:42looked to what was being done in Italy.
00:46In the US, when lockdowns were initially imposed in mid-March of 2020, they were hugely popular,
00:53with polls showing 87% of Americans approving, which is a remarkably high approval rating
00:58in a country that is characterized by a lot of political polarization.