There are often many different ways in which to interpret data, and it's critical to avoid implicit bias when we do so. If we step back and take a dispassionate look, we can see that the democracies are crumbling under the relentless assault of populism, in which cynical blusterers gull tens of millions of ignorant foolish voters with mindless soundbites. We can also see that the democracies in general are full of overweight indolent self-centered people who lack any capacity for sustained effort. We are also seeing the democracies struggling with self-inflicted economic wounds (absurd lockdowns that crippled production, followed by overly generous handouts that stoked inflation) and huge mis-steps such as Europe's reliance on Russia for 40% of its energy needs.

The fact is, democracy is no better than tyranny when it comes to avoiding blunders and grotesquely stupid policies. As for SARS-CoV2 in China, we see clearly from Africa and south-east Asia that the virus was never as dangerous as excitable Western journalists made it seem - all the hundreds of millions of deaths that were supposed to occur in these regions completely failed to materialize. Most deaths were in the West, because the West has the highest obesity rates (a major risk factor for morbidity) and had doctors rushing patients onto ventilators despite many studies conclusively showing this to be responsible for 80% of all Western covid-related deaths.

China's absurd lockdown policies are now being abandoned and plenty of Chinese are contracting covid, but that in no way implies millions of deaths. The hard data simply does not support any such conclusion.