CDC Concludes U.S. Not Prepared For Potential Pandemic Following Year-Long Simulation Drill

WASHINGTON—Concluding that almost every aspect of the country’s response had been a “complete and utter failure,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday that the U.S. was not prepared for a potential pandemic following a year-long simulation drill. “Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen everything from the healthcare system, to the education system, to the food supply chain become strained, and in some cases, collapse beneath the weight of what was just a simple test,” said head of the CDC Dr. Rochelle Walensky, adding that the exhaustive Covid-19 simulation, which was launched in the United States in March 2020, had earned the country a resoundingly low F rating in pandemic readiness. “Unfortunately, if a real viral disease began infecting the U.S. population, we’d have seen absolutely devastating results ending in millions more deaths, as well as complete economic devastation. Based on these less-than-satisfactory numbers, we cannot definitively say the U.S. could ever test, vaccinate, or recover its population from any type of pandemic.” At press time, the National Weather Service also concluded that the U.S. had failed its decades-long global warming simulation.