If you are a credentialed academic in any field at all, then if you espouse policies that are favored by the libertarian, free-market, right wing, you can be assured of a platform for your views in think tanks and the media, even if the subject you are pontificating on are not the ones in which you are credentialed.

Richard Epstein is a good example of that. He is a professor of law. In a recent interview, Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker questioned him about some contrarian claims that he had made about the coronavirus epidemic. Epstein is one of those who believes that we are over-reacting to the pandemic and that the danger to the economy is greater than the danger to people and we should not be having these tough social distancing rule, views that the Trump administration is anxious to believe, and so his views have been influential and received considerable publicity.
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After self-isolating for seven days because he had the coronavirus, UK prime minister Boris Johnson has now been placed in an ICU of a London hospital, presumably because his symptoms have taken a turn for the worse. It is not clear if he has been placed on a ventilator. His spokespersons have been less than forthcoming about his condition in the past week, issuing upbeat statements when it now seems that he was not doing so well, and that has naturally made people suspect that things are worse than what they are being told.
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We have been warned by the US Surgeon General that this might be the worst week of the pandemic in the US and that we should brace for it. The time-lapse graph of world wide infections shows today that the US is still on the rising part of the curve while there are hopeful signs that Italy and Spain, two hard hit countries, are starting to show signs of stabilization by veering away off the exponential growth line.

The Trump administration bears responsibility for its late, inadequate, and confused response to the pandemic but as with all things Trump, it seeks to avoid any responsibility or blame. Governments tend to duck responsibility by making sweeping claims, such as “every believed” or “nobody knew” to imply that they alone should not be held responsible. The “everybody believed” excuse was trotted out after they lied about Iraq having WMDs prior to invading that country. In fact, people knew and said at that time that the evidence produced by the US was false or faulty and should not be believed.
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One of the features of the current pandemic is that the more developed countries especially in Europe seem to have been hit the hardest in terms of the current number of cases. Joe Penney writes that Europe was also the hub from which cases spread to the rest of the world.

As Covid-19 cripples the U.S. and ravages many countries in the world, politicians are battling to craft a narrative of who is to blame for its damage. The virus started in China, of course, but narratives of how it went from epidemic to global pandemic often leave out a crucial element: the role of Europe.
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