I think that things would be approximately the same.
The government [in]competence is a result of how the entire system works, what are the individual incentives, etc. The entire system would start in the same position.
Looking at historical examples, no matter how serious the disease, many people always believed that vaccination was just government’s secret plot to murder them. So even assuming that people would care more if it was mostly about kids… we would get some people more hysterically pro-vaccine, and other people more hysterically anti-vaccine. Social networks would be full of pictures of disfigured and/or dead children, but some people would claim they were killed by the disease, and other people would claim they were killed by the vaccine, and these groups would block each other.
I think that things would be approximately the same.
The government [in]competence is a result of how the entire system works, what are the individual incentives, etc. The entire system would start in the same position.
Looking at historical examples, no matter how serious the disease, many people always believed that vaccination was just government’s secret plot to murder them. So even assuming that people would care more if it was mostly about kids… we would get some people more hysterically pro-vaccine, and other people more hysterically anti-vaccine. Social networks would be full of pictures of disfigured and/or dead children, but some people would claim they were killed by the disease, and other people would claim they were killed by the vaccine, and these groups would block each other.