U.S. intelligence officials warned that the coronavirus “could be a cataclysmic event” in briefings beginning last November to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's Joint Staff and the White House. It appeared in the President's Daily Brief in early January.
ABC News reports: “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. The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia — forces that depend on the NCMI's work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home.”
