We were just three weeks into 2020 when Tom Cotton, the Republican senator from Arkansas, implored the country to take the Wuhan coronavirus seriously. The “experts” told us he was out of his mind—there was only a “minuscule” risk of the virus in the United States. “Not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about,” they said. It was xenophobic fear-mongering for President Donald Trump to restrict travel from China.
Then, of course, the virus made it to the United States.
