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We Had Every Reason to Be Prepared for This Pandemic
Time and time again, experts foretold of a coronavirus-type outbreak
Event 201
On a Friday morning last October, 15 international key figures in business, government, and public health assembled at the luxurious New York Pierre Hotel. At least 130 people came to watch the 3.5-hour event put on by The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The participants were asked to debate, form a strategy, discuss possible outcomes, tackle challenges, and find solutions all based on a scripted, imaginary scenario. Yawn, right? Well, not quite. For “Event 201,” the scenario that was chosen started with a fake news bulletin that went something like this: “a new and unknown disease, modeled largely on SARS, is causing a worldwide pandemic. It originated by bats, transmitted to pigs, and then humans. There’s no vaccine, no drug, the human population is all susceptible.” The made-up — yes, made-up — scenario ends a year and a half after the initial outbreak, with 65 million casualties and a devastating effect on the economy.
Writing, meet the wall
The existing volume of literature, texts, articles, and research warning against a…
