ROGER KIMBALL: The culture of corona: On smoke, mirrors & glimpses of truth. “In January, some of our most reputable experts were urging caution about excessive caution: the coronavirus represents a ‘very, very low’ threat to the American people, they said. Get on with your life. Yes, pay attention, wash your hands, but don’t worry. As late as March 9, we were told on the highest authority that ‘If you are a healthy young person, there is no reason if you want to go on a cruise ship, [not to] go on a cruise ship.’ . . . At the end of January, the President of the United States banned foreign nationals from coming into the United States from China. At first, this was greeted by his opponents as a ‘xenophobic,’ even ‘racist’ overreaction. Several weeks on, his decision was declared to have been too little too late. He somehow ought to have intuited by New Year’s, or even by late December, that the coronavirus would utterly monopolize our attention even though there were no known cases, zero, in the United States at that time.”