The fictional pandemic exercise titled Event 201 was a high level simulation exercise that took place on October 18, 2019, at The Pierre, a luxury hotel in Manhattan NY. High-level global participants gathered to explore ideas as to how to mitigate devastating worldwide economic and societal impacts that would result from “a severe, highly transmissible intercontinental outbreak”. [Source] The exercise was built around a fictionalized CAPS virus, a naturally occurring coronavirus (not unlike SARS or MERS) which originated in bats, but for the fictional exercise, it had emerged from pigs.

The event was held by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Event 201 was by invitation only, with media in attendance such as Bloomberg. Video and audio recording were not permitted, rather, following the event, select high-quality video and audio were made available to the press in attendance.

The sixteen high-level participants included:

[*IGWELS is an acronym recognized to few outside the power elite – the “Informal Gatherings of World Economic Leaders”. These are the very top-tier closed meetings “restricted to the likes of prime ministers, foreign and finance ministers and central bank governors”.][Source]

A primary purpose for the simulation was to illustrate the weakening of international alliances (and the potential of collapsing Governments) – thus, putting forward a shared fervour to increase public-private partnerships. While the high-level participants recognized the public sector as the front line of defence against pandemics, they highlighted their shared position that the resources and strength/ability to respond exist/belong to those in the private sector.

“Creating models such as Event 201 takes more than a year of planning, and an investment of “hundreds of thousands of dollars”, [Ryan Morhard, project lead for Global Health Security, World Economic Forum], but the lessons learned are invaluable.” [Source]

Janet Wu, Bloomberg

Thirty days after the October 18, 2019 simulation exercise, on November 17, 2019, the first documented case of the coronas virus (COVID-19) is said to have appeared. [“The first case of someone suffering from Covid-19 can be traced back to 17 November, according to media reports on unpublished Chinese government data.”] [Source: The Guardian]

Logic dictates that the simulation drill carried out on a fictitious coronavirus global pandemic, which was then declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 by the WHO, is a drill worthy of both study and analysis. Of particular interest is the discussions on how to control the information and messaging. (Such analysis must be conducted via a critical, discerning, and cynical lens.)

October 18, 2019: Johns Hopkins Center For Health Security “tweet” with World Economic Forum and Gates Health

The invite-only simulation exercise was held on Oct 18, 2019 from 8:45 a.m.– 12:30 p.m. It is VERY UNLIKELY that the high-level panel, having flown in from around the world, would have simply disbanded after the 3-hour exercise. It is VERY LIKELY that discussions continued from that point onward behind closed doors for the remainder of the day (if not subsequent days). As Ryan Morhard, World Economic Forum, is identified as IGWELS (the very top-tier closed meetings “restricted to the likes of prime ministers, foreign and finance ministers and central bank governors”) – this detail is worthy of exploration.

Here it is important to note that also on March 11, 2020, the World Economic Forum announced a partnership with the WHO (a UN agency) to form the COVID-19 Action Platform – a task-force comprised of over 200 corporations at launch. This is in addition to the World Economic Forum partnership with the United Nations on June 13, 2019. The corporate world is capturing our real world, in real time.

The videos which remain accessible on the website include:

Highlights Reel – Selected moments from the October 18th Event 201 Exercise (Length: ~12 minutes)[/li]

Segment 1 – Intro and Medical Countermeasures (MCM) Discussion[/li]

Segment 2 – Trade and Travel Discussion[/li]

Segment 3 – Finance Discussion[/li]

Segment 4 – Communications Discussion and Epilogue Video; Segment 5 – Hotwash and Conclusion[/li]

[Website: www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201]

Bloomberg released two separate audio reports:

Bloomberg, Nov 4, 2019: Preparing For The Next Pandemic (Audio): “As the coronavirus outbreak approaches a pandemic, global leaders and health officials are scrambling to contain the fallout. That has sparked quarantines and other emergency action around the world. It’s a scenario that was planned for, in one case just months ago, at a gathering of leaders in global finance, policy and healthcare. Bloomberg’s Janet Wu was there and brings us this report.” [Running time 08:12]

https://www.bloomberg.com/…/preparing-for-the-next-pandemic…

Bloomberg, March 4, 2020: Event 201: Preparing for a Pandemic (Audio)

“Hosts June Grasso and Ed Baxter feature the best stories of the day from Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg Television, and over 120 Bloomberg News bureaus around the world on Bloomberg Radio’s Bloomberg Best. Highlights include… Janet Wu on the potential impact of the next Pandemic.”[21:33-29:33]

https://www.bloomberg.com/…/event-201-preparing-for-a-pande…

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The “COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator”, the”sister CEPI”. Gates and Mastercard’s Impact Fund charity have jointly committed $125m in seed funding.