Spy work

America's national security machine stares down a viral threat

As a lethal virus sweeps the globe, U.S. national security officials are closely monitoring how the disease is affecting closed societies like China, Iran and North Korea, trying to gauge to what extent officials in those countries have been covering up the extent of the outbreak.

They’re also wrestling with a complex question closer to home: how to prevent the virus from spreading inside the nation’s intelligence and defense agencies themselves.

The novel coronavirus, which has now popped up in at least 100 countries and killed more than 4,000 people worldwide, poses a vexing problem for the government’s national security apparatus, which has to protect its own workforce even as it races to analyze the threat, combat misinformation promoted by hostile governments, and inform a president not known for his command of facts and figures.

Many of these efforts have been coordinated through the National Security Council, which has been holding regular meetings on the response strategy since mid-January, according to an administration official.