n New Year’s Day 2020, I was zipping up my fleece to head outside when the phone in the kitchen rang. I picked it up to find a reporter on the line. “Dr. Fauci,” he said, “there’s something strange going on in Central China. I’m hearing that a bunch of people have some kind of pneumonia. I’m wondering, have you heard anything?”

HRSA MADE COVID-19UNINSURED PROGRAMPAYMENTS TO PROVIDERS ONBEHALF OF INDIVIDUALS WHOHAD HEALTH INSURANCECOVERAGE AND FOR SERVICESUNRELATED TO COVID-19

February 25 telebriefing

On February 9,2020, using publicly available data, a senior health official from the U.S. Department of VeteransAffairs warned key senior officials that COVID-19 was more transmissible and deadlier thanH1N1 and the U.S. was only a “couple of weeks” behind the spread in China

In its February 24, 2020supplemental funding request, the Office of Management and Budget wrote, “[t]o this point, noagency has been inhibited in response efforts due to resources or authorities.

The Strategic National Stockpile distributed the last of its PPE held for states on April 19,2020—the same day it made the decision to begin allocating PPE based on need, not population.

in May 2020 when the federal governmentdecided to extend a one-year federal PPE contract to that same PPE manufacturer, the companydeclined the contract offer

When one domestic PPE manufacturer sent multiple warnings and requests toramp up U.S. production throughout the months of January, February, and March 2020, thefederal government declined to engage

conflicting internal accounts of not only whatwent wrong, but also the reasons for those failures

. Ultimately, the Trump Administration waited until March16, 2020—fifty-five days from the date of the first confirmed case—to implement its first widescale attempt at nationwide mitigation of viral spread.

Alex Azar declared a public health emergency

as early as mid-December 2019

initiating export bans on personalprotective equipment (PPE

identified rapid construction of a new 1,000 bed hospital in Wuhan,

U.S. Department of Health andHuman Services’ (HHS) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) learned of anemerging novel pathogen, now known as SARS-CoV-2

Over the last 10 years, we’ve lost 360,000.  These are people that have died from the flu — from what we call the flu.  “Hey, did you get your flu shot?”  And that’s something.

The Johns Hopkins, I guess — is a highly respected, great place — they did a study, comprehensive: “The Countries Best and Worst Prepared for an Epidemic.”  And the United States is now — we’re rated number one.  We’re rated number one for being prepared