Biosecurity

EXCLUSIVE: DEFENSE DEPARTMENT EXPECTS CORONAVIRUS WILL 'LIKELY' BECOME GLOBAL PANDEMIC IN 30 DAYS, AS TRUMP STRIKES SERIOUS TONE

As President Donald Trump assured the public his administration was properly handling the new coronavirus, a document from the Department of Defense showed that officials are preparing for the possibility that COVID-19 may have a significant global impact.

The warning came as part of Thursday's Joint Chief of Staff daily intelligence brief and, according to a document obtained by Newsweek, officials expect COVID-19 will "likely" become a global pandemic within the next 30 days.

Officials have expected global cases would spread. On Tuesday, the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) raised the Risk of Pandemic warning. It went from WATCHCON 2, a probable crisis, to WATCHCON 1, an imminent crisis, due to sustained human-to-human transmission outside of China, according to a report summary obtained by Newsweek.

COVID-19 has touched every inhabitable continent, infecting more than 82,000 people worldwide since it was first identified last December, including potentially 65 people in the United States. Of the cases in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed two were of unknown origin, indicating the possibility of community spread. Then on Saturday, a woman in Washington state became the first death in America.