Table 4.

Case findings: additional factors affecting state-level responses.

China	Social values, community resilience and past experience with SARS-CoV-1 led to an initial period of chaos until central control was reasserted in the COVID-19 case
Italy	Existing poor policy design and institutional arrangements favouring discord along with no recent relevant experience with similar diseases
Singapore	High Policy capacity but societal blind spots regarding foreign workers negatively affected the national-level COVID-19 response.
South Korea	Organizational learning from recent past experiences with similar events such as SARS-CoV-1, H1N1 and MERS led to effective anti-COVID-19 measures.
Canada	Well-functioning federalism and lesson-drawing from SARS-CoV-1 and H1N1 but with a serious blind spot towards vulnerable senior populations in long-term care facilities led to a less than satisfactory response.
Hong Kong	Social values, community resilience and experience with similar diseases and other crises led to an effective response.
Turkey	Authoritarian legacies and processes allowing rapid and strong responses to perceived threats also functioned in the COVID-19 case.
Israel	The COVID-19 response was coloured by local politics and a history of deliberate over-reactions to threats for electoral and other purposes.
USA	The vagaries of federalism led to disjointed responses across the nation and ineffective responses to the pandemic.
Sweden	Social values and governments favouring nudging combined with health decentralization undermined co-ordinated national action and led to a more ‘laissez-faire’ approach to pandemic management.