“We’d done a lot of research on coronaviruses, so we knew they were a clear and present danger,” he told me. “High mortality, no drugs or vaccines in the pipeline, with new variants that could still be emerging.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/magazine/pandemic-vaccine.html
“The intelligence community has warned about the threat from highly pathogenic influenza viruses for two decades, at least. They have warned about coronaviruses for at least five years,” Kaufman said in an interview. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-military-shortage-pandemic/
"It’s been EcoHealth Alliance’s position for the past 15 years that coronaviruses present a clear and immediate threat to our safety. That seems clearer now than ever before. The research that the National Institutes of Health terminated aimed to analyze the risk of coronavirus emergence and help in designing vaccines and drugs to protect us from COVID-19 and other coronavirus threats. This research was reviewed by independent scientists, considered extremely high priority, and funded in 2019. The goals of our work address all four strategic research priorities of the NIH/NIAID Strategic Plan for COVID-19 Research, released just this week. More importantly, international collaboration with countries where viruses emerge is absolutely vital to our own public health and national security here in the USA." https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2020/04/regarding-nih-termination-of-coronavirus-research-funding
