Medical intelligence sleuths tracked, warned of new virus

In late February when President Donald Trump was urging Americans not to panic over the novel coronavirus, alarms were sounding at a little-known intelligence unit situated on a US Army base an hour's drive north of Washington.

Intelligence, science and medical professionals at the National Center for Medical Intelligence were quietly doing what they have done for decades monitoring and tracking global health threats that could endanger US troops abroad and Americans at home.

On Feb. 25, the medical intelligence unit raised its warning that the coronavirus would become a pandemic within 30 days from WATCHCON 2 a probable crisis to WATCHCON 1 an imminent one, according to a U.S. official.

That was 15 days before the World Health Organization declared the rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic.

At the time of the warning, few coronavirus infections had been reported in the United States. That same day, Trump, who was in New Delhi, India, tweeted: The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA."