Just use dependency cooldown. It will mitigate a lot of risk.

If you started your Node project yesterday, wouldn't that mean you'd get the fix later?

no, because if you used dependency cooldown you wouldn't be using the latest version when you start your project, you would be using the one that is <cooldown period> days/versions old

edit: but if that's also compromised earlier... \o/

Obviously you bypass the cooldown to fix critical issues.

NPM is the largest possible target for such an attack.

Attack an important package, and you can get into the Node and Electron ecosystem. That's a huge prize.