Another just-so article that works back from different outcomes to assign causality (and blame) to a policy response. But we know coronavirus was spreading in California by January, and it just didn't catch fire like it did in New York City. propublica.org/article/two-co…
The problem with these articles is not that they praise good policies, and politicians who acted quickly on limited data, but that they create the illusion of understanding where we don't have it. We don't know why New York was hit unusually hard, and why other places were spared
On March 14, weeks into California's state of emergency, the governor of Oklahoma took a notorious selfie in a crowded restaurant. But the virus lacks the moralizing tendency of those who write about it. Oklahoma saw a rise in cases and then they flattened, like almost everywhere 
The assumption that, absent intervention, every major city will end up like Lombardy, New York or London made sense back in March, but does not fit the evidence we have in May. The problem is that journalists have not revisited this assumption and continue to write morality tales
These stories will continue to get written because they offer a cast of heroes, villains, narratives, and above all, the illusion of control. A pandemic that we don't have a great deal of power over is mysterious and frightening. It has to be tamed and made into a story.
