\n\n“At the time, I didn\u2019t find this quote particularly earth-shattering. It seemed like a reasonable concern, but not newsworthy. After all, Americans have lived through multiple pandemic scares \u2014 SARS, MERS, swine flu \u2014 and we largely dodged each bullet. This part of the interview was off-topic for the series I was making, and I left it on the cutting room floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reading the transcript almost a year later, I am struck by how clearly Fauci described this current pandemic. Our nation\u2019s top public health officials have known that this outbreak, or something like it, was a serious possibility, and they haven\u2019t been keeping this information to themselves. But it\u2019s hard to find the collective will to prepare for \u2014 and stop \u2014 a theoretical threat. COVID-19 may be unprecedented, but it wasn\u2019t unpredictable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n