republic of California" aside, I could have sworn San Francisco was still part of the US.

South Korea is a totally valid example. As is Taiwan, or Singapore, or a host of other countries in Asia. The sad fact is, countries in Asia have dealt with regional outbreaks like this in the past and are FAR more prepared than the west to respond. But much of Europe so far has fared even worse than the US. So our response absolutely deserves criticism, but so does the response of most Western countries, so it's not like this is a "if only we didn't have a reality star jackass as president, things would be so much better" type situation. France, Italy and Spain don't have reality star jackasses in charge and their deaths per capita are 3-6x that of the US.