There’s a nearby possible world in which even minor missteps had much deadlier consequences. Suppose Ross Douthat is right that Trump’s incompetence only accounts for about 20,000 American deaths. In @NAChristakis’s counterfactual, 20,000 would be at least 700,000. https://twitter.com/nachristakis/status/1320380244415709184

It is true that we are no longer doing worse than Europe (because Europe is doing horribly). It is emphatically not true that this undermines the competency case against Trump.

Modal logic also illustrates the limits of cross-country comparisons in determining who handled the virus well. The relevant question is not “who’s doing best overall?” It’s “who made the wisest decisions ex ante, without perfect information?” Counterfactuals are relevant there.