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ABC: US intelligence warned of coronavirus in November

Halbrand

Halbrand

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,630
abcnews.go.com

Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources

"Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," a source said.
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com

As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China's Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.

Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document's contents.

"Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," one of the sources said of the NCMI's report. "It was then briefed multiple times to" the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's Joint Staff and the White House. Wednesday night, the Pentagon issued a statement denying the "product/assessment" existed.
 
Neo C.

Neo C.

Member
Nov 9, 2017
3,019
Imagine what a competent president could do with that kind of information.
 
so1337

so1337

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,488
Intelligence officials: "This could be a cataclysmic event."

Trump: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
DeliciousSunnyD!

DeliciousSunnyD!

Member
Oct 31, 2017
9,642
Blood on Fascist hands, and they will never be able to wash them of it. "Christians" who bow to these fuckers better pray that Hell doesn't exist.
 
_Karooo

_Karooo

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,029
What should he have done in November? We didn't even know what the virus was till December.
 
SilentPanda

SilentPanda

Member
Nov 6, 2017
14,021
Earth
_Karooo said:
What should he have done in November? We didn't even know what the virus was till December.
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Do what Taiwan did?
"
Taiwan has a world-class health care system, with universal coverage. As news of the coronavirus began to emerge from Wuhan in the run up to the Lunar New Year, officials at Taiwan's National Health Command Center (NHCC) -- set up in the wake of SARS -- moved quickly to respond to the potential threat, according to a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
"Taiwan rapidly produced and implemented a list of at least 124 action items in the past five weeks to protect public health," report co-author Jason Wang, a Taiwanese doctor and associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine, said in a statement. "The policies and actions go beyond border control because they recognized that that wasn't enough."
This was while other countries were still debating whether to take action. In a study conducted in January, Johns Hopkins University said Taiwan was one of the most at-risk areas outside of mainland China -- owing to its close proximity, ties and transport links.
"
 
amoy

amoy

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,230
That's a lot of wasted time.

_Karooo said:
What should he have done in November? We didn't even know what the virus was till December.
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Trust the intel and allow people who knew what they were doing take care of it? Rather than act like the usual know-it-all obnoxious asshat?
 
Vommy

Vommy

Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,947
Not listening to your Intelligence Service is not that intelligent, huh?
 
jelly

jelly

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
33,841
Trump would rather listen to Putin and Fox News.

I guess when a journalist asks about this.....Trump says his usual nasty response.
 

anamika

Member
May 18, 2018
2,622
SilentPanda said:
Do what Taiwan did?
"
Taiwan has a world-class health care system, with universal coverage. As news of the coronavirus began to emerge from Wuhan in the run up to the Lunar New Year, officials at Taiwan's National Health Command Center (NHCC) -- set up in the wake of SARS -- moved quickly to respond to the potential threat, according to a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
"Taiwan rapidly produced and implemented a list of at least 124 action items in the past five weeks to protect public health," report co-author Jason Wang, a Taiwanese doctor and associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine, said in a statement. "The policies and actions go beyond border control because they recognized that that wasn't enough."
This was while other countries were still debating whether to take action. In a study conducted in January, Johns Hopkins University said Taiwan was one of the most at-risk areas outside of mainland China -- owing to its close proximity, ties and transport links.
"
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That article also blames WHO

While that may be true, why Western countries did not follow Taiwan's lead in January and February when they still had a chance remains unclear. One contributing potential factor many observers have pointed to is that Taiwan, unlike most every other governments, is not a member of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Natasha Kassam, an expert on China, Taiwan and diplomacy at Australia's Lowy Institute, said that early on in the coronavirus pandemic, a lack of direct and timely channels to the WHO "resulted in inaccurate reporting of cases in Taiwan," with WHO officials apparently relying on Beijing for numbers from the island.
"Taiwanese authorities have complained about the lack of access to WHO data and assistance," she said.
That lack of information may have forced Taiwan to go it alone and make decisions early on independently of the WHO guidance and broader international consensus.
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WHO advised against travel bans till it was too late.

But if the Americans had actual intelligence about how bad the situation was in China, they should have done something. It's their own intelligence! Why not take it seriously?
 
so1337

so1337

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,488
_Karooo said:
What should he have done in November? We didn't even know what the virus was till December.
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The Trump administration was warned multiple times that they were on a collision course with a brick wall and what did they do? They decided that bricks weren't real.
thehill.com

Obama officials walked Trump aides through global pandemic exercise in 2017: report

The Obama administration walked incoming Trump administration officials through a hypothetical scenario in which a pandemic worse than the 1918 Spanish flu shut down cities like Seoul and London in…
thehill.com thehill.com
www.nbcnews.com

U.S. intel agencies warned of rising risk of outbreak like coronavirus

In 2017 and 2018 threat assessments, intelligence analysts even mentioned a close cousin of coronavirus by name, saying it had "pandemic potential."
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
www.theatlantic.com

We Were Warned

When the inevitable inquiry into the government's response to COVID-19 happens, it will conclude that signs of a coming crisis were everywhere.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
edition.cnn.com

Top administration officials said last year threat of pandemic kept them up at night

Two top administration officials last year listed the threat of a pandemic as an issue that greatly worried them, undercutting President Donald Trump's repeated claims that the coronavirus pandemic was an unforeseen problem.
edition.cnn.com edition.cnn.com
www.nytimes.com

White House Economists Warned in 2019 a Pandemic Could Devastate America (Published 2020)

A study published last fall went unheeded. One of its authors now says economic shutdowns to fight the coronavirus could last up to eight months.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...9d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html
 

Darkgable

Member
Nov 3, 2017
1,333
Well, I guess in his defence, Trump was very busy on his golf courses and oh yeah, being impeached.

He probably knew then but dismissed it as a Democratic flu hoax.
 
elelunicy

elelunicy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
175
This is utter nonsense. The idea that the virus was already widespread and out of control in November doesn't remotely match the timeline we know and it directly goes against the genomic data we have (nearly all cases worldwide are descendants of a few strains in December).
 
PlzUninstall

PlzUninstall

Member
Oct 30, 2017
563
_Karooo said:
What should he have done in November? We didn't even know what the virus was till December.
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Assuming you're being serious. Even just preparing the relevant healthcare equipment or forwarding the details to the health authorities.

As a more extreme early measure they could even have locked down/limited travel in Nov/Dec.
 
_Karooo

_Karooo

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,029
PlzUninstall said:
Assuming you're being serious. Even just preparing the relevant healthcare equipment or forwarding the details to the health authorities.

As a more extreme early measure they could even have locked down/limited travel in Nov/Dec.
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Read your post again. It's completely illogical. Go look at the timeline of the virus.
 
Malleymal

Malleymal

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,332
Can't wait for him to yell at a reporter about this issue. Nasty question asking fake news
 
haveheart

haveheart

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,076
Neo C. said:
His lackeys do.
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So, if we assume that this report was one of the first giving details on a developing pandemic, not disclosing this to the public or the world community should very well have legal consequences, right? This is not about politics, it's about knowingly endangering the health of the world population. I'm just trying to understand how this is not a big thing atm.
 
_Karooo

_Karooo

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,029
Dyno said:
You're probably gonna need to back that up with something
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WHO said there was no evidence of human to human transmission in mid-January. Most countries had very few cases by late February.

Archived: WHO Timeline - COVID-19

31 Dec 2019China reported a cluster of cases of in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A novel coronavirus was eventually identified.1 January 2020WHO had set up the IMST (Incident Management Support Team) across the three levels of the organization: headquarters, regional headquarters and country level...
www.who.int www.who.int

12 January 2020

China shared the genetic sequence of COVID-19.

13 January 2020

Officials confirm case of COVID-19 in Thailand, the first recorded case outside of China.
 
DeliciousSunnyD!

DeliciousSunnyD!

Member
Oct 31, 2017
9,642
People in this thread trying to downplay the implications of this article are pathetic.

If the intelligence says that this could be a "cataclysmic event", I don't know, maybe taking intense proactive measures would be a good idea. Something like setting up checks at all ports of entry into the country, recalling all foreign citizens, ramping up production of medical supplies namely ventilators, masks, and tests, and setting up procedures to begin testing and tracking the spread of the virus en masse.

But nah, that's silly! Who could foresee the need to do those things! Oh wait, plenty of people with an understanding of the nature of the threat a viral outbreak such as this presents. Maybe, just maybe, defunding the specific multi-national pandemic research group who studied and tracked these very types of viruses was a bad idea! Nahhh, dear leader knows best.

Goddamn.
 
CrazyIvan1978

CrazyIvan1978

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,757
Wisconsin
haveheart said:
So, if we assume that this report was one of the first giving details on a developing pandemic, not disclosing this to the public or the world community should very well have legal consequences, right? This is not about politics, it's about knowingly endangering the health of the world population. I'm just trying to understand how this is not a big thing atm.
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What are you talking about? We have just observed the world's reaction and action when the virus information was made public, and it was not like it was some theory, people were actually dying at this point at an alarming rate. Disclosing it in November would have made as much of an impact, i.e. no impact.
 
Dr. Mario

Dr. Mario

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
14,042
Netherlands
elelunicy said:
This is utter nonsense. The idea that the virus was already widespread and out of control in November doesn't remotely match the timeline we know and it directly goes against the genomic data we have (nearly all cases worldwide are descendants of a few strains in December).
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Agreed. Reading the article it's a lot of nothing too. There was a report on the president's desk in early January. Usually these reports take six weeks, therefore it could have been known at the end of November. That's less than flimsy. At best chatter could have picked up something weird end of November in Wuhan, but certainly nothing that could be called cataclysmic.
 
Exile20

Exile20

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,055
Wasn't the stock market roaring during this time? You expected him to choose American lives over money?
 
Spectral Glider

Spectral Glider

Member
Oct 28, 2017
663
elelunicy said:
This is utter nonsense. The idea that the virus was already widespread and out of control in November doesn't remotely match the timeline we know and it directly goes against the genomic data we have (nearly all cases worldwide are descendants of a few strains in December).
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The article doesn't say the report said it was out of control in November, it says reports warned that it could become an out of control problem for us in the near future. It then says the info finally wound up us a part of Trumps daily briefing in January.
 
Ambient80

Ambient80

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
4,659
Man if only we had seen this coming.

"US intelligence warned of COVID-19"

If only there was something like a warning, or an alert...

"In January senators were warned and they sold stock."

It's such a shame there was no notification of this virus spreading, so many lives could have been saved.
 
mutantmagnet

mutantmagnet

Member
Oct 28, 2017
12,401
The only brightside to all this is our intelligence apparatus was effective enough to get a read on this at the same time the Chinese government should've known better.


This admin sucks so much.


Brazil said:
America's intelligence agencies exist to help kill people, not save people. They were losing focus!
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*rolls eyes*
 

Deleted member 2802

Community Resetter
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
33,729
elelunicy said:
This is utter nonsense. The idea that the virus was already widespread and out of control in November doesn't remotely match the timeline we know and it directly goes against the genomic data we have (nearly all cases worldwide are descendants of a few strains in December).
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The earliest case was in mid November.

The virus might not have been widespread or out of control, but China does not just get random spikes in unknown pneumonia. World intelligence and health agencies should be alarmed anytime China has a spike in unknown disease.
 
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