A Pandemic Simulation Called 'Crimson Contagion' Exposed Weaknesses We're Seeing Now

Its a frighteningly familiar scenariobut its not real. As The New York Times , last year at least a dozen federal agencies, 12 states, and major health organizations such as the American Red Cross, American Nurses Association, and the Mayo Clinic, conducted a pandemic readiness exercise called Crimson Contagion. Using the premise of a flu arriving in Chicago, the teams gamed out the US response in real-time. The idea was to identify weaknesses and improve the official reaction in case of a real pandemic.

The results were.not great. And, unfortunately, many of the problems discovered during Crimson Contagion are similar to those were facing now, with Covid-19. As the faux flu spread across the US, for example, the CDC recommended social distancing, encouraging people to work from home.

Federal and state officials, though, had trouble identifying essential employees and the equipment they needed to work from home. School closings turned chaotic, with some districts proceeding with business as usual while others shut down. Requests from states for federal aid clogged up the bureaucracy, while front-line workers say shortages of antiviral medications, personal protective equipment, and ventilators. Organizers realized just how starved for medical equipment the country would be, unable to quickly manufacture needles, syringes, N95 respirators, and ventilators, among others.

The report went to Congress, as the Times , but little was done, paving the way for our current Covid-19 situation. Its a chilling reminder that far from being completely unpredictable, todays pandemicand the massive problems responding to itwere actually easy to see coming.