Ross Douthat has a knockout column that just posted online, in which he reflects on how the coronavirus pandemic might end Donald Trump’s presidency — and why that is ironic, and for Trump, tragic. Excerpts:

On Jan. 31, over a month ago, the Trump administration made an excellent decision: In an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus, it forbade most foreign nationals from entering the United States if they had recently traveled to China.

This move was immediately attacked in the language of cosmopolitan sophistication, which assumes that because travel bans and quarantines are associated with things liberals consider bad — nationalism, hardened borders, migration restrictions — they necessarily must not work as well.

But this supposed sophistication is really just a superstition. It’s certainly true that the travel ban could not, and did not, prevent the coronavirus from reaching the United States. But as with local quarantines and closings — all of which emphatically do work, whether you’re looking at the history of the Spanish flu or Hong Kong’s success combating the coronavirus today — you don’t need 100 percent effectiveness for travel restrictions to be wise and helpful. What they buy you, above all, is a slower rate of spread, and with it precious time for preparation.

So Trump made the right call, and in so doing he briefly vindicated a case that his supporters have always made for him: He acted like the guy who would make common-sensical choices in the national interest, even when they went against the nostrums of globalization and the supposed wisdom of the do-gooders.

And then his administration took the month that his decision bought the country and completely wasted it.

Douthat explains what Trump did, and failed to do. And then:

And how ironic that would be. In 2016 we elected a China hawk who promised a “complete shutdown” in response to foreign threats, a germaphobic critic of globalization who promised to privilege the national interest above all.

Now he is in danger of losing his presidency because when the great test came, in the form of a virus carried by global trade routes from Communist China, he didn’t take the danger seriously enough.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: I took down the Seth Bannon tweet that led this post. It has been claimed that he falsely represented his own estimations for those of the American Hospital Association. Until I can clear that up, I have taken the post down.

UPDATE.2: The Italian government is about to announce a lockdown of the entire province of Lombardy, and Venice:

Italy prepared Saturday to quarantine more than 10 million people around the financial capital Milan and the tourist mecca Venice for nearly a month to halt the spread of the new coronavirus.

A draft government decree published by Italy’s Corriere Della Sera newspaper and other media said movement into and out of the regions would be severely restricted until April 3.

It was not clear from either the decree or the reports as to when the measure would go into effect.

Corriere Della Sera said it was “imminent” — and that those who violated the measures could be jailed.

Think about what this will mean to poor Italy economically: nobody can come into our get out of Venice for an entire month at least. So much for the Venice tourist economy. Milan is the country’s economic powerhouse — and now it is about to be essentially cut off from the world.

How the hell we are going to avoid a global economic depression, I have no idea.

UPDATE.3: To no one’s surprise, the train stations in Lombardy are full of Italians trying to get out of town before the rail lines to Lombardy are cut. Now, each one of those potential coronavirus carriers is headed south, or north. Great job, Italian government and media.

A final chance to evacuate from the COVID19 red zone. People rush to catch the last trains leaving Lombardy after government declared the quarantine and lockdown of 16 million people in Northern Italy. The mandatory quarantine will last until early April. pic.twitter.com/9m5Sf7nuhH

— Max Howroute▫️ (@howroute) March 8, 2020

UPDATE.4: Wokeness will always find a way:

I’m still not entirely sure how to process the “coronavirus prevention is actually cultural appropriation” absolute miracle of a Tweet pic.twitter.com/MP4tyHUezk

— coronavirus hugs (@paxthedog) March 7, 2020