有人認為，美國這次應對疫情兵敗如山倒，一個可能的原因是150年來本土沒有戰亂，也未曾經歷SARS這類嚴重疫情的洗禮，因此從官到民都缺乏憂患意識，至少不像英國，雖然政府後知後覺，但人民卻表現出抗疫的堅毅精神。英國上下正以「大轟炸精神」自勉，如同二戰時期面臨德軍的空襲，人民在生死交關的危機下，依然泰然自若但堅忍不拔。當時英國設計了一系列標語，其中「保持冷靜，繼續前進」（Keep Calm and Carry On）最能鼓舞人心，安撫了死亡威脅下的恐慌心靈，上下一體度過難關。
如果我沒記錯，我依稀記得似乎是傅柯（Michel Foucault）所說，或者也許是出自十五世紀文藝復興時期的德語作家 Sebastian Brant 所寫的《愚人船》裏頭有這麼一句話：「放眼四周，盡皆愚人」，我們的世界幾乎就是被各式各樣的瘋狂與愚蠢所籠罩。年少輕狂，很喜歡這句話；出於無知以及同樣的愚蠢，膽子特別大，講好聽是口才一流，講難聽就是無知近乎勇，懂了一點皮毛就敢講。
Chinese Ambassador to U.S. Urges ‘Serious Rethinking’ of Ties https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-22/chinese-ambassador-to-u-s-urges-serious-rethinking-of-ties
美國獨立新聞調查網站Grayzone，2020/04/20刊出了一篇調查報告，指出“新冠病毒來自武漢病毒研究所”這一陰謀論的來龍去脈。
原文在此:
How a Trump media dump mainstreamed Chinese lab coronavirus conspiracy theory
By Max Blumenthal and Ajit Singh
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/04/20/trump-media-chinese-lab-coronavirus-conspiracy/#more-23474
諾貝爾經濟獎得主Angus Deaton和他太太Anne Case 上個月出版了一本書，叫做 "Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism"。我沒看這書，但我很清楚兩位作者的想法。"Disease of Despair" 或 "Deaths of Despair" (絕望之疾及絕望死亡) 是他們夫妻在五、六年前創造的一個辭彙。先有此疾，終而尋死。這詞簡單說就是「生無可戀」，活著沒什麼意思，毫無指望。
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US alerted Israel, NATO to disease outbreak in China in November — TV report
White House was reportedly not interested in the intel, but it was passed onto NATO, IDF; when it reached Israel’s Health Ministry, ‘nothing was done’
By TOI STAFF
The Times of Israel
來源：https://bit.ly/34UmlWM
16 April 2020
US intelligence agencies alerted Israel to the coronavirus outbreak in China already in November, Israeli television reported Thursday.
According to Channel 12 news, the US intelligence community became aware of the emerging disease in Wuhan in the second week of that month and drew up a classified document.
Information on the disease outbreak was not in the public domain at that stage — and was known only apparently to the Chinese government.
US intelligence informed the Trump administration, “which did not deem it of interest,” but the report said the Americans also decided to update two allies with the classified document: NATO and Israel, specifically the IDF.
The network said Israeli military officials later in November discussed the possibility of the spread of the virus to the region and how it would affect Israel and neighboring countries.
The intelligence also reached Israel’s decision makers and the Health Ministry, where “nothing was done,” according to the report.
Last week, ABC News reported that US intelligence officials were warning about the coronavirus in a report prepared in November by the American military’s National Center for Medical Intelligence.
It was unclear if that was the same report that was said to have been shared with Israel.
Colonel Shane Day, the NCMI director, denied last week that any such report existed. “As a matter of practice the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters,” he said. “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.”
In its first major step to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Israel announced on January 30 it was barring all flights from China, ten days after Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued his first public comments on the virus and the Asian country’s top epidemiologist said for the first time it could be spread from person to person.
An Associated Press report on Wednesday said Xi’s warning came seven days after Chinese officials secretly determined that they were likely facing a pandemic, potentially costing China and other countries valuable time to prepare for the outbreak.
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Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources
"Analysts concluded it could be a cataclysmic event," a source said.
ABC News
By Josh Margolin and James Gordon Meek
9 April 2020,
來源：https://abcn.ws/34UfjRT
When the White House was first warned of coronavirus
According to an exclusive ABC News investigation the National Center for Medical Intelligence warned the military and White House about the spread of the virus in China as far back as late November.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to reflect comment from the Pentagon.
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.
MORE: CDC director downplays coronavirus models, says death toll will be 'much lower' than projected
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."
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," said Mulroy, who hasn't seen the reporting. "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."
MORE: Trump abruptly removes inspector general named to oversee $2T in stimulus spending
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."
ABC News：“Did the Pentagon receive an intelligence assessment on COVID in China last November from the National Center for Medical Intelligence?”
Defense Sec. Mark Esper: “I can’t recall, George, but we have many people that watch this closely.”
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.
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If it were true that America’s spy agencies were caught that off guard, one intelligence official told ABC News, "that would be a massive intel failure on the order of 9/11. But it wasn’t. They had the intelligence."
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.
《旁觀者》（The Spectator）18日有一則評論”Why Trump and Xi might both lose the corona wars“ ，當中提到，有學者早已預見如新冠病毒這樣比流感更具傳染性與致命性的病原體出現，我們的公共機構卻已腐朽到無法應付。作者舉了一個三年前的賭約：英國天文學家、數學家 Martin Rees 爵士對賭美國實驗心理學家 Steven Pinker，賭條為 「一場生物恐怖或生物錯誤將在不晚於2020年12月31日開始的6個月內導致100萬人傷亡。」（“A bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event within a six month period starting no later than Dec 31 02020.”）
因為好奇該條賭約，我從「長期賭注」網站上看到公開內容“A Long Bet (http://longbets.org/9/)”，預測者Martin Rees的論點，大意是因為生物技術的快速發展，將導致成千上萬甚至上百萬人有能力造成災難性的生物災難，這個災難有可能來自生物恐怖攻擊，也可能是源於疏忽所導致。
更進一步追蹤 Martin Rees的相關資料，Martin Rees這個可能的末日主張很久以前就開始，2004年他寫了一本《我們的末世紀》(”Our Final century?”)，美國出版時變成《我們的末日》(“Our Final Hour”)，並與哲學家Huw Price等人於2012年成立劍橋大學生存風險研究中心(Centre for the Study of Existential Risk）。
Martin Rees更多論述可觀賞他在TED講壇上所發表的「我們能阻止世界末日嗎？」https://bit.ly/2Vn3mkA。因為太多事情我無知，感想就很簡單：不怕一萬只怕萬一的保險概念，不能單純歸因以陰謀論標籤，面對人類自己有能力導致的毀滅性災難，要抱持哪怕一絲的警戒，因為毀滅性災難一旦發生，沒有人承受得起。
