Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, American intelligence agencies have been attuned to signals indicating new terrorist activity.
Now it appears that we should have been paying the same kind of attention to developing diseases. And there are agencies and teams set up to do that.
But a recent Scientific American report shows how those efforts were often underfunded and understaffed, with the emergence of COVID-19 a predictable result.
Josh Fischman is a senior editor at SA and our guide to the situation.