> When things started to happen rapidly there, it was very, very clear that the same situation would play out in the US...

When it was still restricted to China, I was able to reassure myself into complacency with memories of the original SARS. China contained that, so maybe they will contain this one, too?

As soon as it hit Italy hard, that story didn't work anymore, and it was clear it was only a matter of time before it spread everywhere.

> Didn’t the mayor of Florence have a “hug-a-Chinese” day in February? There was so much political correctness around banning travelers from China that it probably cost significant lives.

They were one of the first countries to ban travel from China.

What you call "political correctness" was just an anti-racism message.

Italy certainly had some things go wrong in some areas, but they were also unlucky in some ways, being the first country to get hit hard.

A lot of power is derived from and dependent on pretending there is division where there is not.

And yet the Chinese community in Italy didn't suffer much from Covid outbreaks https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-..., neither did Chinatown in San Francisco https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/us/san-francisco-coronavi...