Paranoia and fear about an epidemic are often worse than the disease itself. If you want to get a taste of the insanity provoked by the new coronavirus, look no further than US Republican Senator Tom Cotton. As I discussed on Sunday, there has been a conspiracy theory circulating in social media and fringe media groups in the United States claiming the virus was bioengineered as a weapon by the Chinese but was accidentally leaked into the population. This is because the epicentre of the outbreak is near the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is certified to handle the world’s...