The coronavirus response: Why wasn't America ready?

"We now know that Xi Jinping went before the state council, the high governing body of China, and told them in a secret session on January 7 that the issue in Wuhan was so serious that he was personally stepping in and taking control," said Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer and author of "The Coming Plague." "The head of state of a nation of more than a billion people doesn't personally intervene in a little outbreak with a half-a-dozen cases. Uh-unh. We now know that the CIA was passing on to the White House, 'Look, there's something potentially catastrophic emerging.'