Italian PM, when asked on why he didn’t announce lockdown earlier to prevent the outbreak, said if he had announced a lockdown early during the outbreak, people would have defied him and dismissed him as a mad man.

Compare that with India. Trust in leadership matters a lot.

Here is the source of information on what the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said. Excerpt from his recent interview to BBC.

This reinforces this piece on @ForeignPolicy that countries where trust on government is high seem to do well in containing the pandemic. https://twitter.com/foreignpolicy/status/1250469017187483648?s=21 https://twitter.com/foreignpolicy/status/1250469017187483648