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In Jan 2017, a week before Trump takes office, Obama staffers run a pandemic response exercise for incoming senior Trump cabinet officials that warns of critical shortages of PPE, ventilators, etc.
March 2017: @SenWarren, @PattyMurray and 3 House Dems write HHS Secretary Tom Price to raise concerns about the nation’s ability to respond to infectious disease threats. No response received.
April 2017: Alarm from health experts fuels a WaPo story titled, 'The Trump administration is ill-prepared for a global pandemic,' which notes that 'the Trump administration has filled few of the senior positions critical to responding to an outbreak.' https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-trump-administration-is-ill-prepared-for-a-global-pandemic/2017/04/08/59605bc6-1a49-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html
October 2017: Adm. Tim Ziemer, who will be dismissed in 2018 as Senior Director for Global Health Security at the NSC, writes a WH blog post warning that the world remains under-prepared for an infectious disease outbreak. https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/securing-global-health-u-s-leadership/
Feb 2018: The U.S. intel community Worldwide Threat Assessment warns that a 'novel strain of a virulent microbe that is easily transmissible' carries 'the potential for a severe global health emergency... major economic and societal disruptions'
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA---Unclassified-SSCI.pdf
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA---Unclassified-SSCI.pdf
Feb 2018: A coalition of global health orgs warns that severe U.S. cuts to CDC epidemic prevention efforts around the world (including in China) will leave the world unprepared for the next outbreak
March 2018: Bill Gates says he has personally and repeatedly warned Pres. Trump, including the previous month, that the U.S. government is not properly prepared for a large and lethal modern-day pandemic https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/04/27/bill-gates-calls-on-u-s-to-lead-fight-against-a-pandemic-that-could-kill-millions/
May 2018: Luciana Borio, director of medical and biodefense preparedness at the NSC (whose team is soon-after disbanded) warns that we are not prepared to respond to an emerging pandemic
May 2018: @SenSherrodBrown, in a letter protesting the elimination of the NSC pandemic response team, requests the administration urgently re-prioritize global health security
Sept 2018: Ex-Obama homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco co-authors a Foreign Policy essay, 'The Next Pandemic Will Be Arriving Shortly,' warning of 'clear signs that the world is unprepared for the next outbreak' https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/28/the-next-pandemic-will-be-arriving-shortly-global-health-infectious-avian-flu-ebola-zoonotic-diseases-trump/
Jan 2019: The DNI's Worldwide Threat Assessment includes an even more dramatic warning that the U.S. remains 'vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or largescale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability'
Jan-Aug 2019: HHS runs a multi-agency simulation of an influenza pandemic that 'drove home just how underfunded, underprepared and uncoordinated the federal government would be for a life-or-death battle with a virus for which no treatment existed' https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-outbreak.html
October 2019: A draft report of lessons from the HHS simulation 'accurately predicted the very types of problems' with the response seen now, the NYT reported, including ventilator/mask/supply shortages, confusion over federal & state roles, and federal interagency friction
