New Delhi: The United States government, Israel, the NATO countries in Europe and North America, had ignored the red flag waved by a US spy agency about the danger posed by the novel coronavirus more than five months back in November 2019, Israeli media has reported.
The US agency National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) had reportedly prepared the document warning of the imminent danger in November itself. It reached the White House soon and despite being apprised, President Donald Trump chose to ignore it, the report said.
But to be fair, despite not acting on it, the US government passed on the dire warning to its staunchest allies—the 30 NATO countries and the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). The IDF communicated it to Tel Aviv. But strangely enough, not one entity chose to take any action although Israel did study the implications such a pandemic may have on itself and its neighbours, before deciding not to do anything.
The US government has not accepted the validity of the Israeli media report until now.
At that time in November, even the Chinese did not make the Wuhan virus public. It was only on January 20 that Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a public warning about the threat the virus posed and that ‘it be taken seriously’, wasting valuable time that nations could have used to prepare for the contagion.
The fact that the virus had the potential to take a global problem became apparent when a COVID 19 positive case was reported from Thailand on January 13.
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With about 6.75 lakh COVID 19 positive cases, the US leads the world tally among countries while about 35,000 have died due to the infection. There have been about 13,000 cases in Israel while about 143 people have died.
Ominously, a few top military officials were also infected after a high-profile NATO meet in Germany where 24 generals and commanders had met to plan preparations for the high-profile NATO’s Defender-Europe Exercise. The infected included General Jaroslaw Mika, who represented Poland.
Set up on July 2, 2008, the NCMI is built on the remnants of the US Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center. Headquartered in Maryland, it is mandated to monitor infectious diseases that could be ‘weaponized’ by inimical forces besides maintaining surveillance of biological agents and manmade biological threats.
Less than a year of its being formed, the NCMI prepared a report predicting the pandemic potential of H1N1 in April 2009. It was only two months later that the WHO declared it a pandemic.
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Controlled by the US Department of Defense, it is part of the 16 US agencies meant to collect and analyse information. It is believed that the US spends about $80 billion every year on intelligence gathering.
The report assumes significance and adds on to the ongoing controversy that many governments worldwide including the US, refused to pay heed to the emerging infection which has become a pandemic now, infecting about 22 lakh people worldwide of whom more than 1.4 lakh have died.
