The pandemic warnings that were ignored

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

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🗓️ 23 March 2020

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

Shane Harris on what U.S. officials knew about the global threat of the novel coronavirus, and when they knew it. Chris Mooney on why the coronavirus is killing more men. And, Dan Zak reflects on our shifting sense of time and space during the pandemic.

U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic. Why was the government so slow to respond?

The coronavirus is killing far more men than women. Epidemiologists are trying to figure out why.

Coronavirus is a test that no one knows how to pass.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From the newsroom of the Washington Post.
0:04.3	Hi, this is Vanessa Williams from the Washington Post.
0:08.3	Hey, it's Philip Rutger at the Washington Post.
0:10.9	Do you have a minute?
0:11.9	Hi, this is Dan Zag.
0:13.4	This is Post Reports.
0:15.1	I'm Martin Powers.
0:18.8	It's Monday, March 23rd.
0:23.5	Today the intelligence reports that warned of a pandemic.
0:27.1	By the coronavirus is killing more men and are shifting sense of time and space.
0:36.5	Going back to January and into February, US intelligence agencies were issuing ominous
0:42.9	warnings about the growing danger of the coronavirus, which at that point had been largely focused
0:50.1	in China and in Wuhan from which it was spreading.
0:53.7	And these reports were describing the virus with all of the characteristics of a pandemic.
1:02.6	Shane Harris covers intelligence and national security for the post.
1:05.9	He's been reporting on what US officials knew about the threat of the coronavirus and
1:11.4	when they first started hearing about it.
1:13.5	Probably the first real significant data point that we know of is that on January 3rd, officials
1:19.3	were alerted to initial reports of the virus after the director of the Centers for Disease
1:24.4	Control and Prevention had discussions with his colleagues in China.
1:29.3	So we were alerted by some discussions that Dr. Redfield, the director of the CDC, had
1:34.4	with Chinese colleagues on January 3rd.
	...

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