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The Story of COVID-19

Two sterile vials, one with a syringe stuck upright inside. In the background, other syringe materials and a surgical mask.
A photograph of medical supplies: two sterile vials, syringes, needles, and surgical masks.

U.S. lacks sufficient manufacturing capacity for almost all pandemic countermeasures.

2019

The Story of COVID-19
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A photograph of medical supplies: two sterile vials, syringes, needles, and surgical masks.

The Crimson Contagion Functional Exercise finds that “the U.S. lacks sufficient domestic manufacturing capacity and/or raw materials for almost all pandemic influenza medical countermeasures, including vaccines and therapeutics, the needles and syringes needed to administer them, and personal protective equipment, including masks, needles, and syringes" (A-Mark Foundation, n.d.).

The exercise is based on a hypothetical scenario of a new influenza virus starting in China and spreading around the world. Materials for the event predict that a pandemic of high severity could result in 110 million illnesses, 7.7 million hospitalizations, and 586,000 deaths in the United States.