In the early days of this pandemic, as the first few cases of COVID-19 were being diagnosed in the US,

a career public health official named Rick Bright got an email.

It was from the owner of a mask supply company, and I should just say you are about to hear an expletive,

one that we are not going to bleep.

I'll never forget the emails I received from Mike Bowen indicating that our mask supply,

or in 95 rest per se, I was completely decimated.

And he said, we're in deep shit. The world is, and we need to act.

Bright says he relayed those concerns up the chain of command and got no response.

From that moment, I knew that we were going to have a crisis.

Coming up more from whistleblower Rick Bright's congressional testimony and why he says the US

could have been more prepared for the coronavirus.

Some scientists raised early warning signals that were overlooked.

And pages from our pandemic playbook were ignored by some in leadership.

His warning about next winter and a vaccine timeline,

and later the unintended costs of keeping kids home from school.

This is coronavirus daily from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It's Thursday, May 14th.

The subcommittee on health will now come to order.

In his old job, Rick Bright was the head of a federal agency called

the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or Barta.

It supports development and procurement of vaccines,

and helps the government plan for things like a pandemic.

I believe we could have done better.

...