According to The Times of Israel, Israeli television reported that US intelligence agencies alerted NATO as well as Israel to the Coronavirus outbreak in China months ago.
According to Channel 12 news, the US intelligence community knew about the outbreak in Wuhan in the second week of that month and compiled a classified report. The daily claims that the information on the disease was not yet in the public domain although the Chinese government knew about it.
The Trump administration was alerted but “did not deem it of interest”. The US nevertheless decided to warn at least two allies: NATO and Israel, specifically the IDF.
According to the TV report, Israeli military officials then discussed the possibility of the spread of the virus to the region and how it would affect neighbouring countries.
The Israeli Health Ministry shrugged off the warning and “nothing was done,” according to the report but on January 30 Israel barred all flights from China, after it was determined that this was Sars-Cov-2 on January 8.
In the US, ABC News reported that US intelligence officials had warned about the Coronavirus also in November. The warning was issued by the American military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence but Colonel Shane Day, the NCMI director, denied that any such report existed.
(NCMI), a subsidiary of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), warned about a viral contagion getting out of hand in Wuhan, based on “detailed analysis of intercepted communications and satellite imagery”.
An unnamed source told ABC, “analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event”, and because of the gravity of the situation the leadership was “briefed multiple times” including the DIA, the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the White House.
Pentagon chief Mark Esper was questioned about it by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “Did the Pentagon receive an intelligence assessment on COVID in China last November from the National Center for Medical Intelligence of DIA?”
Esper responded: “Oh, I can’t recall, George,” […] “But, we have many people who watch this closely.”
Stephanopoulos insisted: “This assessment was done in November, and it was briefed to the NSC in early December to assess the impact on military readiness, which, of course, would make it important to you, and the possible spread in the United States. So, you would have known if there was a brief to the National Security Council in December, wouldn’t you?”
Esper then floundered: “I’m not aware of that.”
Corona cases in the US have almost reached a staggering 1 million.
