As far back as late November, U.S. intelligence officials were warning that a contagion was sweeping through China’s Wuhan region, changing the patterns of life and business and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources briefed on the secret reporting.
Concerns about what is now known to be the novel coronavirus pandemic were detailed in a November intelligence report by the military's National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), according to two officials familiar with the document’s contents.
The report was the result of analysis of wire and computer intercepts, coupled with satellite images. It raised alarms because an out-of-control disease would pose a serious threat to U.S. forces in Asia -- forces that depend on the NCMI’s work. And it paints a picture of an American government that could have ramped up mitigation and containment efforts far earlier to prepare for a crisis poised to come home.
"Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," one of the sources said of the NCMI’s report. "It was then briefed multiple times to" the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the White House. Wednesday night, the Pentagon issued a statement denying the "product/assessment" existed.
From that warning in November, the sources described repeated briefings through December for policy-makers and decision-makers across the federal government as well as the National Security Council at the White House. All of that culminated with a detailed explanation of the problem that appeared in the President’s Daily Brief of intelligence matters in early January, the sources said. For something to have appeared in the PDB, it would have had to go through weeks of vetting and analysis, according to people who have worked on presidential briefings in both Republican and Democratic administrations.
"The timeline of the intel side of this may be further back than we’re discussing," the source said of preliminary reports from Wuhan. "But this was definitely being briefed beginning at the end of November as something the military needed to take a posture on."
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The NCMI report was made available widely to people authorized to access intelligence community alerts. Following the report’s release, other intelligence community bulletins began circulating through confidential channels across the government around Thanksgiving, the sources said. Those analyses said China’s leadership knew the epidemic was out of control even as it kept such crucial information from foreign governments and public health agencies.
"It would be a significant alarm that would have been set off by this," former Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Mick Mulroy, now an ABC News contributor, said of the NCMI report. "And it would have been something that would be followed up by literally every intelligence-collection agency."
Mulroy, who previously served as a senior official at the CIA, said NCMI does serious work that senior government leaders do not ignore.
"Medical intelligence takes into account all source information -- imagery intelligence, human intelligence, signals intelligence," Mulroy said. "Then there’s analysis by people who know those specific areas. So for something like this to have come out, it has been reviewed by experts in the field. They’re taking together what those pieces of information mean and then looking at the potential for an international health crisis."
NCMI is a component of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. Together, the agencies’ core responsibilities are to ensure U.S. military forces have the information they need to carry out their missions -- both offensively and defensively. It is a critical priority for the Pentagon to keep American service members healthy on deployments.
Asked about the November warning last Sunday on ABC’s "This Week," Defense Secretary Mark Esper told Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos, "I can't recall, George. But we have many people who watch this closely. We have the premier infectious disease research institute in America, within the United States Army. So, our people who work these issues directly watch this all the time."
Pressing the secretary, Stephanopoulos asked, "So, you would have known if there was briefed to the National Security Council in December, wouldn't you?"
Esper said, "Yes. I'm not aware of that."
The Pentagon did not comment Tuesday, but on Wednesday evening following the publication of this report, the Defense Department provided a statement from Col. R. Shane Day, Director of the NCMI.
"As a matter of practice the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters. However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists," the statement said.
The White House National Security Council and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
Critics have charged the Trump administration with being flat-footed and late in its response to a pandemic that, after sweeping through Wuhan and then parts of Europe, has now killed more than 12,000 in the U.S.
For his part, President Donald Trump has alternated between taking credit for early action and claiming that the coronavirus was a surprise to him and everyone else. He has repeatedly touted his Jan. 31 decision to restrict air travel with China, but at the same time, he spent weeks telling the public and top administration officials that there was nothing for Americans to fear.
On Jan. 22, for instance, Trump made his first comments about the virus when asked in a CNBC interview, "Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?" The president responded, "No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine."
As late as Feb. 19, Trump was offering positive reviews for the way China’s leaders had handled the coronavirus.
"I'm confident that they're trying very hard," Trump told an interviewer from Fox 10 in Phoenix. "They're working it -- they built, they built a hospital in seven days, and now they're building another one. I think it's going to work out fine."
It was not until March 13 when Trump declared a national emergency and mobilized the vast resources of the federal government to help public-health agencies deal with the crisis that was poised to crash on to the homeland.
ABC News contributor John Cohen, who used to oversee intelligence operations at the Department of Homeland Security, said even the best information would be of no use if officials do not act on it.
"When responding to a public health crisis or any other serious security threat, it is critical that our leaders react quickly and take steps to address the threat identified in the intelligence reporting," said Cohen, the former acting undersecretary of DHS. "It’s not surprising to me that the intelligence community detected the outbreak; what is surprising and disappointing is that the White House ignored the clear warning signs, failed to follow established pandemic response protocols and were slow to put in place a government-wide effort to respond to this crisis."
ABC News' Katherine Faulders, Luis Martinez and Terrance Smith contributed to this report.
The head of a Defense Intelligence Agency center has denied a report that its medical health team issued a memo to the White House warning of a spreading outbreak in Wuhan, China based on information it gleaned back to November.
The denial followed a report Wednesday that officials around the U.S. government received a warning about the growing contagion – culminating its inclusion in the President's Daily Brief in early January.
'As a matter of practice the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters,' Col. R. Shane Day, the center's director said in a rare public statement on an intelligence matter.
'However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists,' he said, Time reported.
Col. R. Shane Day, director of the National Center for Medical Intelligence, has denied that the center produced a memo in November on a spreading outbreak in China
The language of the denial appeared confined to November and to a formal work product.
President Trump said Wednesday he learned of the scope of the coronavirus outbreak 'just prior' to his issuance of an order shutting down travel to the U.S. from non-U.S. citizens departing China.
He said he 'learned about the gravity of it was some time just prior to closing the country to China and when we closed up the flights coming into China, various other elements and as you know, we closed up to Europe. So, I don't know, exactly, but I'd like to see the information,' Trump said.
A defense official told CNN officials searched for 'every possible product' that might be related to the topic but came up empty.
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Hyten told the network he didn't see intelligence reports about an outbreak until January.
'We went back and looked at everything in November, December. The first indication we have were the reports out of China in late December that were in the public forum. And the first intel reports I saw were in January,' he told the network.
Information including both that from public sources and other methods about the outbreak was compiled in the president's January 3 daily brief.
U.S. intelligence officials who focus on medical developments around the world got information on a spreading outbreak in Wuhan, China in November that they used to brief White House and other officials around the government, ABC News reported Wednesday.
Intelligence officials memorialized what they learned and presented it to the Defense Intelligence Agency and the joint staff of the Pentagon, as well as the White House, according to the ABC report.
Those warnings would have anticipated the coronavirus outbreak that has tanked the global economy and killed 12,000 Americans and counting. It was not immediately clear from the report, based on anonymous sourcing, who in the White House had access to the information and precisely when.
As the information was refined and verified, it was only included in the President's Daily Brief, a key intelligence document, in early January – days after China informed global health officials of the new coronavirus outbreak.
However sources 'described repeated briefings through December for policy-makers and decision-makers across the federal government as well as the National Security Council at the White House,' according to the report.
The briefings of an issue the military needed to be aware of went back as far as late November, according to the report.
The National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), part of the nation's sprawling military intelligence service, with offices in Ft. Detrick, Maryland, produced the report.
It wasn't the only warning of the growing threat as the coronavirus outbreak spread and ultimately became a pandemic.
President Donald Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro issued his first grim warning in a memo dated January 29 - just days after the first COVID-19 cases were reported in the US.
At the time, Trump was publicly downplaying the risk that the novel coronavirus posed to Americans - though weeks later he would assert that no one could have predicted the devastation seen today.
Navarro penned a second memo about a month later on February 23, in which he warned that as many as two million Americans could die from the virus as it tightened its grip on the nation.
The memos were obtained by the New York Times and Axios on Monday, as the number of COVID-19 cases nationwide surpassed 368,200 with at least 11,000 deaths.
Navarro warned as many as 2 million Americans might die with trillions in economic impacts if action wasn't taken.
'The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil,' Navarro wrote.
'This lack of protection elevates the risk of the coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.'
DID THE U.S. KNOW ABOUT CORONAVIRUS IN NOVEMBER? HOW A CRISIS UNFOLDED
November 17, 2019: Date China now says
it has traced the first coronavirus infection
to, in Hubei province. Data now suggests
that there were up to five new cases each
day for the next few days. If U.S. intelligence
was aware of such an outbreak, it suggests
an excellent source or deep infiltration of
Chinese government communications.
'Late November.' ABC News reports that National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) produced a report detailing concerns about a contagion in the area around Wuhan. The NCMI denies such a 'product/assessment' existed 'in November of 2019'
November 28: Thanksgiving. ABC News says the intelligence that there is a mystery illness in and around Wuhan is in circulation among U.S. agencies by the holiday
December 1: The first case which has now been concluded to have happened without direct exposure to the Wuhan wet market is recorded
'December': ABC News reports that warnings of contagion around Wuhan are circulating extensively in U.S. intelligence circles
December 17: First double-digit rise in cases in Wuhan and region
December 27: Zhang Jixian, a doctor at Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, tells China's CDC equivalent that he believes the mystery illnesses are caused by a new – novel - coronavirus
December 31: China reports the existence of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause in Wuhan to the World Health Organization, saying they started on December 12. Confirmed cases stand at 266
January 1: Chinese authorities close the Wuhan wet market, in the belief that wild animals sold for meat may have been the source of the virus, Confirmed cases are 281
January 3: Alex Azar, HHS secretary, and other health officials are first warned about contagion in China. President's daily briefing is reported by CNN to include a warning about the outbreak in Wuhan for the first time; the Washington Post however suggests it was some days after this
January 5: SARS and MERS are not the source of the pneumonia infections, China says
January 7: Novel coronavirus is reported to have been isolated by Chinese authorities
January 9: First reported death from the virus, a 61-year-old man said to have been exposed at the wet market
January 11: WHO are told by China's national health commission – its equivalent of the CDC - that the outbreak is associated with the Wuhan wet market
January 16: Japanese authorities report the first infection outside China, a man who traveled to Wuhan
January 20: Dr Tony Fauci announces the NIH has started work on a virus
January 20: First case on U.S. soil is reported in Washington, a 35-year-old man who had been in Wuhan
January 22: Donald Trump addresses coronavirus for the first time when he is interviewed by CNBC's Squawkbox at Davos. 'Are there worries about a pandemic at this point?' he is asked by anchor Joe Kernen, and answers: 'No. Not at all. And we have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It's going to be just fine.'
January 29: Peter Navarro writes 'memo for the president' warning of up to 5 million dead Americans and a $6 trillion hit on the economy from the virus. On April 7 Trump says he 'never read it' then on April 8 dodges whether he was briefed on it saying he does not remember
April 9, 2020, 6:43 PM EDT
By Ken Dilanian, Robert Windrem and Courtney Kube
WASHINGTON — U.S. spy agencies collected raw intelligence hinting at a public health crisis in Wuhan, China, in November, two current and one former U.S. official told NBC News, but the information was not understood as the first warning signs of an impending global pandemic.
The intelligence came in the form of communications intercepts and overhead images showing increased activity at health facilities, the officials said. The intelligence was distributed to some federal public health officials in the form of a "situation report" in late November, a former official briefed on the matter said. But there was no assessment that a lethal global outbreak was brewing at that time, a defense official said.
On Wednesday night, the Defense Department disputed an ABC News report that an "intelligence report" had warned about the coronavirus in November.
"We can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is incorrect," said a statement by Dr. R. Shane Day, an Air Force colonel who is director of the National Center for Medical Intelligence, a unit of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. "No such NCMI product exists."
But the current and former officials told NBC News that while no formal assessment was produced in November — and hence no "intelligence product," in the jargon of the spy agencies — there was intelligence that caught the attention of public health analysts and fueled formal assessments that were written in December. That material and other information, including some from news and social media reports, ultimately found its way into President Donald Trump's intelligence briefing book in January. It is unknown whether he read the information.
James Kudla, a spokesman for the Defense Intelligence Agency, declined to comment beyond the NCMI statement.
Air Force Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday that he did not see intelligence reports on the coronavirus until January.
"We went back and looked at everything in November and December," he said. "The first indication we have were the reports out of China in late December that were in the public forum. And the first intel reports I saw were in January."
Even after public health authorities began sounding the alarm in January, the U.S. took few steps to ready itself for a pandemic. There was no effort to boost national stockpiles of medical equipment or encourage social distancing, for example. While Trump touts his decision to stop flights from China coming to the U.S. on Jan. 31, about 381,000 people had flown from China to the U.S. in January, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
Mask-clad passengers alight from their train at the railway station in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on March 10, 2020.Noel Celis / AFP - Getty Images file
Experts believe the coronavirus outbreak began last fall in a seafood market in Wuhan.
The South China Morning Post, citing
Chinese government data, reported that
the first documented case of someone in
China's suffering from COVID-19, the
disease caused by the coronavirus,
occurred Nov. 17.
On Dec. 31, an Associated Press report out of China was one of the first English-language news accounts of a mysterious new virus.
"Chinese experts are investigating an outbreak of respiratory illness in the central city of Wuhan that some have likened to the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic," the story began.
