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Sometimes, it takes a national crisis to change what’s fashionable in politics. A pandemic erupts, and suddenly, experts-be-damned populism loses some of its allure. A record of sober technocratic experience becomes an asset instead of an albatross. And after many years of being relegated to the cheap seats, America’s governors have been thrust into the spotlight. With President Donald Trump largely unable or unwilling to play the part of a national unifier or to take decisive action to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the leadership we normally expect from the Oval Office has instead come from state executives throughout the nation — or not. (Bill Scher, 4/1)

For the last two decades, Washington has focused on preventing 9/11-style attacks, considering that to be our most urgent national security concern. But the latest threat to American life has come not from a terrorist with a dirty bomb, or from “rogue states” like North Korea or Iran but, rather, from a microbe too small to see. Expanding the focus of national security to encompass the broad array of internal and external dangers actually facing us won’t be easy. But the lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the United States has been myopic in understanding what counts as a priority threat.It now seems abundantly apparent that rather than building hospitals in Afghanistan, we should have focused on producing masks and ventilators here at home. Rather than building schools in Iraq, we should have invested in scientific breakthroughs to treat disease. (Rajan Menon and William Ruger, 4/2)

Under normal circumstances, jails and prisons are horrible places. The incarcerated housed in them are sitting ducks for contagion. So when a public health emergency such as covid-19 sweeps the globe, penal institutions can become incubators for pandemics. Just last weekend, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced the first death of a federal inmate due to the disease. Meanwhile, local jails such as the overcrowded facilities on Rikers Island in New York are dealing with a coronavirus outbreak among the incarcerated and the staff. What advocates have long feared is only going to get worse unless President Trump and governors step in. (Jonathan Capehart, 4/1)

The Department of Justice sent out a memo last week with this arresting detail: Prosecutors around the country should consider coronavirus as a “biological agent,” and therefore charge certain acts related to COVID-19 as federal crimes of terrorism. As a former U.S. prosecutor, I have no quarrel with the department’s being able to “make a federal crime” of the worst conduct that we may see with the virus. Among other things, it gives the country a hook to bring federal resources to bear on cases that for whatever reason may be difficult for states to bring. But the general idea of viewing the coronavirus as a “biological agent” akin to anthrax or botulism, and its “possession” or transmission as a crime of terrorism, is as novel as the virus and it carries its own exponential dangers. (Harry Litman, 4/2)

Americans know all too well the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic right here at home: the lost lives, the gravely ill, the overwhelmed hospitals, the severe economic downturn and spiking numbers of unemployed, the social isolation. But they should also recognize that the pandemic is doing significant harm to the nation's influence and image abroad. Countries around the world still look to the United States to provide global leadership. When it comes to Covid-19, however, Washington has been missing in action, dealing the United States a self-inflicted wound. (Charles Kupchan, 4/2)

We’ve wanted so much to say, “Good job, Gov. DeSantis! You’ve been on top of Florida’s coronavirus pandemic since the very start!” But now that DeSantis has issued a 30-day statewide stay-at-home order for all but those seeking essential services, we’ll just say: “Finally.” (4/1)

We are facing a public health emergency. Texans need to hear a clear message: Stay home unless you absolutely need to go out. Gov. Greg Abbott provided a muddled version of that mandate Tuesday. His latest executive order tells Texans to minimize contact with other people unless they are providing or receiving “essential services,” such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy, seeing a doctor, taking a jog or going to work at a critical job that can’t be done from home. (3/31)

The first thing we’ll say about Gov. Greg Abbott is that he’s moving in the right direction to expand social distancing requirements and limit activities to essential service work statewide. But the governor’s latest order also risks creating confusion because of his reluctance to adopt the clear and important language that represents the best defense we have now to prevent exponential spread of the virus — stay home. (4/1)

The coronavirus that has upended our daily lives isn’t going to last forever, even as Detroit becomes one of the most prominent places nationally where the pandemic is taking its toll. News of the TCF Center in downtown Detroit, formerly Cobo Center, being retrofitted into an overflow hospital to attend would-be victims of this public health disaster underscores how dreadful things are right now. But when we look at the havoc the pandemic is wreaking on the city, the question remains: How much impact will COVID-19 have on Detroit, a city that has touted an economic recovery yet has been challenged by extreme poverty? (Bankole Thompson, 4/1)

Over the weekend, New York joined Delaware and Pennsylvania as the latest states to move their primaries to June in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the territory of Puerto Rico, which had already moved its primary to late April, now finds itself less than a month away from holding an election, pending another postponement. While a few weeks may seem like an eternity in the midst of a pandemic whose impact is growing by the hour, it leaves little time for state officials to implement emergency plans to administer fair, free and accurate elections in this crisis. (Katie Hobbs and Kim Wyman, 3/31)