Another great piece from @HelenBranswell : https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/20/the-months-of-magical-thinking-as-the-coronavirus-swept-over-china-some-experts-were-in-denial-about-what-was-to-come/

"On Jan. 5...Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told me he didn’t think the new outbreak would turn into a pandemic."

"Within days, Osterholm’s thinking shifted. By Jan. 20, he was warning the 3M Company — which makes N95 respirators — that the virus, in his opinion, would cause a pandemic. The company immediately moved to increase production."

"In late January, Wang Linfa, who discovered SARS, told STAT the virus was not as dangerous as its earlier cousin had been. “It’s too early to say if a SARS-like event will happen. But I have a gut feeling it won’t,” said Wang."

“There’s enough evidence to suggest that this virus can still be contained,” Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program, told STAT on Feb. 1.

"Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, may have been among the first top U.S. health experts to publicly acknowledge the new coronavirus might cause a pandemic...she told me in an interview on Jan. 24."

"Schuchat recalled the moment when she realized what the country and world might be facing. In a Feb. 27 meeting with modelers...the scenario that seemed the most plausible projected 2 million Americans would die, if actions to slow spread weren’t taken."

Here is the key thing here:

People are somehow fooling themselves that other politicians, who are not scientists, would have somehow figured out all these very smart scientists were wrong, and ignored them in January?

That is delusional.