Consider the record of Covid score-settling thus far:

Covid is mainly a problem of the big cities! But then it became a tragedy for rural America. (And yes, this is me pleading guilty to a bad argument in the pandemic’s early days, when I thought population density would be the main driver of transmission.)

The lab-leak theory is racist right-wing conspiracy talk! Um, except the argument is far from settled on whether or not it’s true.

Andrew Cuomo is a model of crisis management! But then it turned out that the disgraced former governor was guilty of one of the worst political decisions in the early months of the pandemic, when he forced New York’s nursing homes to take back patients who had been hospitalized with Covid, and later tried to cover up the blunder.

Ron DeSantis is a model of crisis management! The Florida governor did, in fact, do well in the early months of the crisis, when he focused state resources on protecting the elderly, only to later preside over a gigantic spike in cases.