Nurses wearing protective gear wait for patients at a drive-through testing site for coronavirus in a parking lot at the University of Washington’s Northwest Outpatient Medical Center in Seattle, Wash., March 17, 2020. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

On the homepage, Kevin Williamson makes the important point that, as unfair as it may seem, while the country is living in various forms of lockdown for the coronavirus and experiencing additional upheaval, we may still face additional problems on top of these:

For example, we are not that far away from the beginning of hurricane season. The disruption caused by this epidemic could make an ordinary pre-storm evacuation in Florida or Louisiana a much more complicated affair. Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston — but it also left gasoline pumps empty in North Texas and points beyond. The usual minor emergencies that are an ordinary part of life are not going to stop because there’s an epidemic under way.

Let’s also note that there is the possibility of not-so-natural disasters at this time. We can chuckle that ISIS is now warning its remaining operatives to stay out of Europe because it’s not safe there . . . but there is always the possibility that America’s enemies may see this as the perfect opportunity to strike at us and inflict even greater damage. Someone already launched a denial-of-service attack on the networks of the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI is investigating. If nothing else, America’s enemies are studying how we are responding to this particular virus and keeping it in mind for how we would respond to an attack with a biological weapon.

And a bioterror attack doesn’t have to be a state actor; the most dangerous biological weapon attack in U.S. history came from followers of cult leader Baghwan Shree Rajneesh in 1984, when they put salmonella in salad bars in restaurants in Oregon, poisoning 751 people but thankfully not killing anyone. (Insert joke about an excuse to avoid eating salad here.)

Our intelligence agencies and much of our military can’t work from home, so they’re soldiering on as best they can, using the precautions that are available and hoping their exposure is minimal.


We are in a tough situation. But circumstances can just about always get worse.