The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, was already aware that a pandemic could be caused by a new strain of coronavirus. This is indicated by an internal report dated in 2017 that was recently leaked by The Nation website.
The United States already predicted the current international health crisis and more: that it would be accompanied by a shortage of facial masks, beds and hospital respirators. This scarcity, according to the 103-page document, would have “a significant impact on the availability of the global workforce”.
It is still mentioned that this new respiratory disease would be “the most significant threat”, or better saying, a strong candidate in the development of a possible pandemic.
“The intelligence community and the US military were well aware of what could happen and, unfortunately, it did,” said The Nation reporter Ken Klippenstein in an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered.
Ken Klippenstein was responsible for obtaining the document, which he said would have been delivered by an official of the United States Department of Defense under the condition of anonymity.
During the interview, the reporter stated that within American intelligence circles, the coronavirus had been considered a likely threat for at least 5 years. He also criticized the speech of President Donald Trump who declared that the current pandemic arose “out of nowhere”. After all, for Klippenstein, it is unlikely that the White House did not receive the information contained in that report.
And while President Trump said the current covid-19 pandemic “came out of nowhere,” Klippenstein says it is “inconceivable that the White House did not receive it,” referencing the information contained in the 2017 Pentagon report.
“Even the most industrialized countries will have insufficient hospital beds and specialized equipment, such as respirators and pharmaceuticals, to adequately treat their populations during a clinically serious pandemic,” says the report.
