U.S. Intelligence Reportedly Warned of COVID-19 Outbreak Back in November

A week before declaring a national emergency, Donald Trump described the coronavirus outbreak as a “problem” that no one saw coming. He would go on to blame China for allegedly spreading misinformation and covering up the severity of the disease, suggesting Chinese officials were to blame for the U.S.’s lack of preparedness.

“It could have been stopped in its tracks,” he said on March 19. “Unfortunately, they (China) didn’t decide to make it public. But the whole world is suffering because of it.”

However, a newly published report undermines Trump’s previous claims that the COVID-19 crisis was unanticipated. Sources told ABC News that U.S. intelligence had learned of contagion spreading in China’s Wuhan region in late 2019, and began raising concerns of “a cataclysmic event” as far back as November. The sources cited a report by the military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), which described an “out-of-control disease” that could possibly threaten U.S. forces based in Asia.

The insiders claimed that the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, and the White House were repeatedly briefed on the report throughout December, well before the U.S. had its first confirmed case of coronavirus. 

“The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing,” the source said of preliminary reports. “But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on.”