The US has approximately 3.2 times more Covid-19 deaths per capita than Canada at this point.

What's the cause of this disparity? A different point in the pandemic? Better health care? Quicker and more thorough response? We don't know - although hopefully we will in the future.

A prediction: you won't see this question raised in American media any time soon. America has a structural blind spot when it comes to comparisons with Canada, and will compare itself to almost any other country before comparing itself to the neighbour that it most resembles.

In the case of Covid-19, that involves comparisons to South Korea, Taiwan, Italy, the UK, Germany, Sweden... almost every country imaginable besides Canada.

That's because Canada is in many ways an embarrassment to the United States: it effectively undercuts the assumptions of exceptionalism that (in different ways) both American conservatives and liberals hold.

The one bedrock belief all Americans hold is that the US cannot be just another country, and Canada is a reminder that it may be just that.