The initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic varied among different countries and cultures with large contrasts in outcomes. Western countries were generally slow in implementing pandemic restrictions while Southeast/ East-Asian countries quickly adopted social distancing, universal masking, mass testing and lockdown measures – resulting in fewer COVID-19 cases and death. Despite the apparent benefits of these restrictions, many countries did not adopt similar actions, allowing the virus to spread further in their populations. Three cultural barriers may explain the poor compliance. “We are not like them” refers to the exceptionalism attitudes by Western (British/ European) countries over their former colonies leading to reluctance in following effective pandemic responses of the latter. “We cannot be like them” posits that Western countries cannot emulate the operational and infrastructure readiness in coping with pandemic that the Asian countries have inculcated following the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 outbreak since their healthcare services are more optimized for non-communicable disease management. “We don’t want to be like them” describes the Western individualism attitudes (as opposed to the general collectivism attitudes of Asian countries) that impedes with compliance with social restrictions. Underlying compliance include various factors: social norms, self-interest vs. prosocial actions, individual vs. collectivism action, value reframing. To improve compliance, public health messaging needs to be consistent, nuanced and customized to its target audience, with specific attention paid to vulnerable populations. Going forwards, during inter-pandemic periods, policy-makers need to understand and be more aware of localised practices and cultures that require specific interventions to get sufficient ‘buy-in’ from such groups, so that their compliance can be more reliable for any future pandemic response when such an event again arises.