Confessions of a coronavirus skeptic

Like many Americans, I'm deeply concerned about COVID-19. This hasn't always been true.

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Like many Americans, I'm deeply concerned about the epidemiological and economic consequences of COVID-19. But this hasn't always been true.

For the first six weeks or so of the story — from mid-January through the beginning of March — I was a coronavirus skeptic, waving away the growing concern and alarm, mildly mocking those who warned of the danger, fretting far more about the threat of overreaction than I was about the virus itself. This began to change once the virus hit Italy hard. After the Lombardy region went into lockdown with fatalities soaring, I changed my view, realizing that this was going to be huge story. Though it still took a few more days for me to grasp just how enormous.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.