"Disaster Agency Foresaw Killer Virus Months Before COVID-19"

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency warned last year that a pandemic caused by a novel strain of influenza would cripple the country's response capabilities by driving millions of people into overwhelmed hospitals.

The report, which was written before the new coronavirus first surfaced in China, offered these prescient predictions: The deluge of patients would create "a shortage of medical supplies, equipment, beds, and healthcare workers."

FEMA's warning, issued in July, forecast with stunning accuracy the social, economic and personal devastation that the ongoing pandemic has caused.

The report, which has not been previously described, was drafted in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and other federal organizations."

Thomas Frank reports for Climatewire April 9, 2020.

Source: ClimateWire, 04/10/2020