@MaxB their federal governments had a different attitude towards the disease though, which arguably made a big difference

@MaxB BC has been very meticulous about accurate record keeping, so it's unlikely to be the explanation. In March many patients were diagnosed based on symptoms and CT scans.

@JonathanReez Great answer, with sources! I'll wait a little while for a potentially better answer but if none comes by I'll accept this one. Just as a point of fact though, as a Canadian, it's well-known and reported in Canadian news, and anecdotally from personal friends of mine who live in/have travelled to BC since the pandemic started, that BC (both the provincial government and the populace) is doing and has done basically nothing about Covid, far less than Washington state did (which is itself not enough).

If I could hazard a guess as to why WA was hit far harder than BC, my guess would primarily be that the Covid population distribution in Canada is vastly different than the US; in the US it mainly started in the west coast and city centres: WA, CA, and NY mainly. In Canada, until recently (a couple months ago) covid has been more or less wholly contained in east coast city centres (Toronto, Montreal mainly). BC is about as isolated as you can get from a problem which mostly appears in the East, while in the US the same problem is focused in the West.

@Ertai87 I'd argue that really highlights the importance of a national response. No matter what Washington state does to control the pandemic, we're still at the mercy of other states who aren't doing as much. Since COVID-19 cases are overall lower in Canada vs the US, the risk is lower, even in provinces that may not be doing much to control it

@divibisan I was primarily responding to the last point in the answer, where WA and BC were compared directly. Anecdotally speaking from what I've heard from people I know who live in/have been there, life in BC is pretty much as normal; businesses (including bars and restaurants) aren't closed, people aren't wearing masks at all, and so on, at least as of a couple months ago (I don't know what's happening recently since they seem to have had a large case spike within the last month or so)

Based on the ease with which the BLM protesters seem to move between states in the US though, I'd hazard a guess that interprovincial travel (and all travel in general) in Canada seems to be viewed (by the people, nothing to do with the government; I haven't personally heard a statement by Trudeau on the issue) as much more dangerous than interstate travel in the US; I'd guess that to be a factor, which kind of speaks to your comment.

@Ertai87 there was a lot of travel between Seattle and Vancouver up until the first week of March. I've personally traveled at least 4 times between the two cities during the beginning of the year. Plus Whistler is Canada's top ski resort and likewise attracted tens of thousands of people from all over the world.

@JonathanReez Keeping records doesn't affect the virus. I've found 3 large differences between WA and BC: (1) population density (3x), (2) tests (BC did much more AFAIK) (3) protests (CHAZ in Seattle). Of course, it could also just be the luck of the draw -- why did some Chinese regions have a lot more COVID than others?

@MaxB population density is similar if you exclude northern BC which is just barren tundra nobody lives in. Tests don't matter for the accounting of deaths as diagnosis is possible based on symptoms. Protests happened during June, when the bulk of deaths have already happened.

@MaxB BC did have a lockdown in March/April. Nowhere as bad as many other places, but the official position was definitely to stay home except to exercise, non-essential businesses were shut and restaurants/cafes/bars were all shut except for takeout (most stayed shut anyway). To some extent, picking WA against us is the wrong choice, WA was quite competent compared to other states at mitigating covid. A large part of the difference is, IMHO, that we still remember SARS '03, where we did much better than Ontario due to good early medical judgment. We trust epidemiology doctors, basically

@ItalianPhilosophers4Monica yes, the crucial part is that Canadians obeyed the government instructions (whether they came from a doctor or not doesn't really matter). A much larger percentage of Americans did not, partially due to the President actively undermining the COVID response. I'm personally a supporter of the "herd immunity" strategy, but I still believe that the Federal government did a bad job.

@Ertai87 plus, re-reading your argument for "doing nothing", a lot of it revolves around not shutting down enough businesses to your liking. First, we can, to an extent, afford to do that because we never dropped the ball, unlike ON ou QU. Second, until a vaccine is found, we are in this for the long term. Full-scale shutdowns are an economic nightmare and a fiscal black hole. If we have to do it again we will but it will also mean we will have failed. And mask wearing on Vancouver streets has definitely been trending up the last 4-6 weeks. Still think we need to throttle some more tho

@JonathanReez if you exclude northern BC which is just barren tundra but that's the point. If you close the border, BC becomes essentially cut off from everywhere else. WA is contiguously connected to other population centers on the coast.

@JonathanReez I'm personally a supporter of the "herd immunity" strategy So you are criticizing POTUS for doing something you actually support? Kind of typical of this site.

@MaxB going for herd immunity is about encouraging young people to hang out and party while discouraging the elderly from leaving their houses, aka the Swedish approach. The US approach was just chaos in the beginning.

@MaxB yes, Washington is more connected to others, but Trump could've banned non essential interstate travel. This would've significantly reduced the number of people going back and forth.

@JonathanReez Closing state borders is draconian, probably unconstitutional, and definitely pointless if you are going for herd immunity anyway. The Swedes did not encourage young people to hang out and party. They basically did what Trump + anti-lockdown governers are doing.

@MaxB it is constitutional, see the link in my answer. Or at least it would've been upheld for long enough to make a difference

The Swedes did encourage it implicitly

but yes, ideally Trump would've come out in early April and asked every citizen under 30 to go hug their peers while staying away from grandma

The Swedes explicitly encourage working from home: folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency-of-sweden/… and so they implicitly encourage not socializing. In any case, they reached herd immunity a couple of months ago, so that seems pointless now.

@JonathanReez Actual quote: "You should avoid any large social gathering such as parties, weddings, funerals and other events attracting many people at the same time." So POTUS + anti-lockdown governors are doing exactly what the Swedes are doing. You are bashing POTUS just because you hate him. Admit it.

@MaxB the Swedish epidemiologist was quoted in the beginning on how he hopes for herd immunity

unfortunately the Swedish government backed out of it :/

I don't hate Trump, he's just an incompetent leader that's all

Biden would be a bit better, although he's also a senile old man