Long before the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China, and then soon spread to nearly every country on Earth, a conference in 2018 offered proof that epidemiologists at the CDC and other institutions were aware that a new pandemic was poised to strike.
WASHINGTON — Two years ago, some of the nation’s top public health officials gathered in an auditorium at Emory University in Atlanta to commemorate the 1918 influenza pandemic — also known as “the Spanish flu” — which had killed as many as 40 million people as it swept the globe.
“Are we ready to respond to a pandemic?” asked Dr. Luciana Borio, who was head of the since dissolved global health section of the National Security Council. Top government officials gave these warnings mere steps from the nation’s public health headquarters, raising questions about why that warning was not heeded, given how unambiguous it was. “Our angst is getting higher and higher,” Jernigan said as the conference came to a close, adding that “our leadership is getting a lot of concerns.”
Auerbach described conversations he’d had on Capitol Hill about pandemic preparedness, and the diminishing funds devoted to that end. “You know, don’t worry about that,” lawmakers were apparently telling him. “If we’re not funding that at the federal level, the governors and the local officials will increase the funding and compensate” for federal cuts, he was apparently assured.
But the coronavirus was hardly unforeseen. In fact, experts like Jernigan have been warning about a new pandemic for years. In recent weeks, interest in the 1918 influenza has understandably spiked, with people eager to understand what can be learned from that catastrophic outbreak. Jernigan’s presentation then includes a discussion of how the 1918 spread, summarizing various well-known aspects of that era that exacerbated the pandemic: World War I, crowded cities and a lack of understanding of how viruses work.
The presentation warned of “potential disruption” in supply chains of food, energy and medical supplies, as well as of the health care system itself. Those predictions appear to have been borne out in the United States, with governors pleading for respirators and hospital overcrowding leading to the construction of a coronavirus treatment facility in the middle of Central Park. There have also been runs on supermarkets, though wide-scale food shortages have not been reported.
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