It is sometimes thought that autocrats and authoritarian regimes, as odious as they are in terms of their human rights abuses and their restriction of freedoms, are better than democrats and democratic regimes when it comes to tackling urgent crises besetting their nation.
The reasoning behind this goes that authoritarian regimes are unconstrained by the rule of law in responding to crises, are more centralized (which allows for better coordination) and are also unencumbered by elections and therefore can draw up long term strategies and do not have to worry about appeasing voters.
It may still be true that authoritarian regimes are capable of better long term planning due to the absence of party alternation in government, but the coronavirus pandemic provides strong evidence that autocracies (and especially illiberal democracies) are ill equipped to tackle crises that require protecting the lives of their citizens.
Although official statistics are hard to trust in an age when autocratic leaders routinely manipulate them to exaggerate their successes and minimize their failures, it is still suggestive that the countries at the very top of the global coronavirus mortality list are notably all democracies with autocratic leaders.
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