The simplistic shots at President Trump, who indeed should have taken the virus more seriously at the outset, don’t work. He’s the president of New York, but also of other large, international cities that have escaped New York’s fate. Has his leadership been better in those places, or do divergent conditions and local decisions account for the better outcomes? None of this, of course, is to disparage New Yorkers. They have absorbed a gut punch over the past two months with characteristic grit and bravery. Yet, without New York’s distinctive vulnerability, the course of the epidemic would look completely different.