(Chris Parker, Headline USA) As a COVID-weary world eyes growing cases of monkeypox, one bioterror simulation conducted over a year ago predicted its start date earlier this month with surprising accuracy.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global nonprofit security organization, held a bioterrorism simulation in March of 2021 that covered the aftermath of a bio-engineered strain of monkeypox escaping from a lab on May 15, 2022.
The ‘fictional’ exercise involved “an unusual strain of monkeypox virus that first emerged in the fictional nation of Brinia and spread globally over 18 months.” The end result of that exercise predicted 3 billion infections and 270 million deaths.
Recommendations based on the simulation’s results call for “no-regrets” government policies ahead of (rather than in response to) future pandemic outbreaks. That includes increased government spending and control.
The NTI’s recommendations also call for more global involvement from the World Health Organization and the United Nations. Since the actual outbreak, the WHO has asked for increased surveillance. The UN has already condemned some media coverage of monkeypox as racist and homophobic.
President Biden has directed the government to order 14 million freeze-dried monkeypox vaccines at the cost of $119 million. It will be used to convert existing doses of smallpox vaccines.
Twitter was abuzz with the seemingly coincidental timelines. Conservative actor Adam Baldwin tweeted “Hey guys… remember when this was all war-gamed? Monkeypox engineered to be vaccine-resistant,” along with a screenshot of NTI’s timeline. His Tweet referenced a ‘hypothetical’ January 10, 2023 event in which the simulated version of monkeypox becomes vaccine-resistant.
So far, two monkeypox cases have been confirmed in the US with a third possible case in Florida. The two confirmed cases were found in Massachusetts and New York.
The WHO confirms 92 global cases with 28 more still under review. Belgium responded by requiring patients with confirmed cases to quarantine for at least 21 days.
Biden initially told South Korean reporters “everybody should be concerned” about monkeypox, but later downplayed those concerns over COVID: “I just don’t think it rises to the level of the kind of concern that existed with COVID-19.”
