Even as China was announcing that its deaths from the novel coronavirus had surpassed its toll from SARS, President Donald Trump released a proposed budget for 2021 that slashed funding for our chief defender against epidemics by 18 percent.

Within the overall proposed cuts detailed on Feb. 10 for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was a reduction in spending to guard against “emerging and zoonotic diseases” from $635,772,000 to $550,464,000.

Zoonotic diseases are those that have crossed from animals to humans, as the novel coronavirus is believed to have done. The $85,308,000 proposed budget cut is less than the cost of 5 miles of border wall.