The simulation mixed details of past disasters with fictional elements to force government officials and experts to make the kinds of key decisions they could face in a real pandemic. It was a tense day. The exercise was inspired in part by the troubled response to the Ebola epidemic of 2014. Unlike Ebola, “which spreads through direct contact and bodily fluids,” this latest “was a flulike respiratory virus, which would spread far more easily from person to person through coughing and sneezing . . .” In the exercise, schools closed, the demand for surgical masks and respirators far exceeded
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