Event201 Q&A: Déjà vu?

April 13 2020

Déjà vu (/ˌdeɪʒɑː ˈvuː, - ˈvjuː/ (listen); French: [deʒa vy]) is the feeling that one has lived through the present situation before. The phrase translates literally as "already seen".

“Curiouser and curiouser,” she said, a bolt of déjà vu flowing through her as the words left her mouth. Only Underland made her feel this exited and disoriented at the same time”. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.

Q: What is the Event201 ?

A: Event201 was a fictional 3.5-hour pandemic tabletop exercise that simulated a series of dramatic, scenario-based facilitated discussions which took place on Friday, October 18, 2019 from 8:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at The Pierre hotel, New York, NY.

Q: Who organized and sponsored Event201?

A: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security executive team led the charge in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Event 201 was supported by funding from the Open Philanthropy Project (Open Phil). As of August 2019, Open Phil has made around 650 grants to over 370 unique organizations, disbursing a total of $857 million. It main funders are Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook and Asana. Cari Tuna is Mr. Moskovitz wife. Its CEO and co-founder is Holden Karnofsky.

Q: Why the event was named Event201?

A: WHO responds to approximately 200 epidemics every year. Hence, Event201 is the 201-st epidemic, which becomes pandemic.

Q: Who were the “players” participating in the Event201?

A: Dubbed “15 global business, government, and public health leaders” the players were:

Latoya Abbott - Senior Director of Global Occupational Health Services for Marriott International, nurse-practitioner;
Sofia Borges - the UN Foundation’s Senior Vice President and Head of the New York office;
Brad Connett - President of Henry Schein's U.S. Medical Group;
Christopher Elias, MD - President of the Global Development Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation;
Tim Evans, MD - the Inaugural Director and Associate Dean of the School of Population and Global Health (SPGH) in the Faculty of Medicine and Associate Vice-Principal (Global Policy and Innovation) of the McGill University;
George Gao, Ph.D. - the Director-General, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention;
Avril Haines, JD - a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University; a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; a member of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service; and a principal at WestExec Advisors. During Obama administration, Dr. Haines served as Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. She also served as the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council;
Jane Halton - member of the board of the ANZ Bank, Clayton Utz, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and the US Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. She is chairman of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, COTA, and Vault Systems;
Matthew Harrington - the global chief operating officer at Edelman, an industry-leading communications firm;
Martin Knuchel - Senior Director and Head of Crisis, Emergency & Business Continuity Management, for Lufthansa Group Airlines;
Eduardo Martinez, JD - President of the UPS Foundation and UPS Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer;
Stephen Redd, MD - the Deputy Director for Public Health Service and Implementation Science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC);
Hasti Taghi - chief of staff capacity at a major media company (Dr. Why: which one?)
Adrian Thomas, MD - Vice President Global Public Health, at Johnson & Johnson;
Lavan Thiru - the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Chief Representative in the New York Representative Office.

Dr. Why: in my Whypinion, only 2 out of 15 “players” - George Gao, Ph.D. and Stephen Redd, MD could be described as “leaders”, but hardly “global leaders”. The rest are bureaucrats and 3-4th tier executives.

Q: What was the Event201 scenario?

A: An outbreak of a novel zoonotic coronavirus transmitted from bats to pigs to people that eventually becomes efficiently transmissible from person to person, leading to a severe pandemic.

Q: Which animal is the original infection host?

A: Pigs.

Q: Which country it originated from?

A: Brazil.

Q: Which virus is the cause of pandemic?

A: The FICTIONAL Coronavirus causing Acute Pulmonary Syndrome (CAPS-virus), a virus from the same family as SARS-CoV-1 and MERS.

Q: What are the main characteristics of this pandemic?

A: The CAPS virus is more transmissible in mild cases than SARS-CoV, and spread by mildly symptomatic individuals is possible. Transmission is via the respiratory route, mostly by respiratory droplets, with some proportion being airborne during aerosol-generating medical procedures.

Approximately 50% of CAPS cases require hospitalization, many of them in an intensive care unit (ICU).
The CAPS fatality rate in hospitalized patients is about 14%.
The overall case fatality rate (CFR) is 7%.
The average R0 is 1.74.
The incubation period ranges from 5 to 7 days.

Q: What drug is used to combat the CAPS virus?

A: There is one FICTIONAL HIV antiviral—extranavir—that may be effective for treatment or prophylaxis of CAPS.

Q: Is there a vaccine against CAPS-virus?

A: There is no licensed vaccine for any coronavirus. Coronavirus vaccines for SARS and MERS have been technically challenging to develop and have not made it out of clinical trials.

Q: Why experimental SARS and MERS vaccines cannot be used to prevent CAPS?

A: Vaccines against SARS or MERS coronaviruses would likely not be protective against CAPS, because coronaviruses are prone to genetic reassortment; therefore, a vaccine against one coronavirus is not cross protective against another coronavirus.

Q: What do we have to lose, if we try SARS or MERS vaccines?

A: Some experiments have raised the possibility that immunity incurred from certain coronavirus vaccines can be short lived, and that enhanced disease may result from certain coronavirus vaccines. This has prompted some concern that vaccines targeting coronaviruses (eg, MERS, SARS) could lead to adverse events.

Q: How long it will take to develop a vaccine?

A: Development of a vaccine against the CAPS virus will likely take years to achieve. The vaccine development process can take more than a decade.

Q: What are the issues with public communications during pandemic?

A: True information about public health concerns is increasingly competing with false messages that can damage public confidence in health interventions and health authorities. These false messages are often defined as misinformation, erroneous information shared through various channels, and disinformation, purposefully spread false or misleading information. The information environment is increasingly made up of a mix of information coming from web sources and other media, in addition to historical sources such as print and TV news media. However, the influence of social media has made the spread of false information even more pernicious.

Q: How long the pandemic will last?

A: The scenario ends at the 18 months. Since the whole human population is susceptible, during the initial months of the pandemic, the cumulative number of cases increases exponentially, doubling every week. The economic and societal consequences become increasingly severe. The pandemic will begin slowing down due to the decreasing number of susceptible people. The pandemic will continue at some rate until there is an effective vaccine or until 80-90 % of the global population has been exposed. From that point on, it is likely to be an endemic childhood disease.

Q: How many people are projected to die during this period?

A: 65 million.

Q: Are any Event201 media files available?

A: Yes. The segment 1-5 videos and the full-length 3-hour video can be found here.

Q: What was produced as a result of Event201?

A: Event201 published recommendations “PUBLIC-PRIVATE COOPERATION FOR PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE. A CALL TO ACTION”.