If a virus that has killed nearly 600,000 people in the U.S. and close to 4 million around the world turns out to have escaped from a laboratory in China, the formless fear that has immobilized most of the world for the last year and a half, at last given a target, might coalesce into fury. And fury, when widely shared, is hard to control... It may be, as Ross Douthat has suggested, that a confirmation that the Covid-19 virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory would lead to a major propaganda advantage in the geopolitical battle over hearts and minds. Such victories matter. But they’re not likely to satisfy the all-too-literal American mind, which, when roused to anger, invariably seeks more concrete satisfactions: invade this, regulate that, throw so-and-so in jail. Anger seeks catharsis, often in the urge to “do something.” Lots of bad policy is driven that way. The Sept. 11 experience offered a catharsis because the nation was able to strike back. On the other hand, the intensity of national fear and anger created an atmosphere in which it was difficult to engage in serious public debate about the merits of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.