Global News

In 2017, the Johns Hopkins Center of Health Security ran a simulation of a coronavirus pandemic known as SPARS. What can we learn from this exercise?

In the months since SARS-CoV-2 was declared a pandemic, researchers and journalists have spent countless hours searching for relevant information that might shed some light on the origins of what has come to be known as COVID-19. This research has led some to a number of simulations and exercises which “war gamed” a potential viral outbreak and asked how the people and institutions of the world would respond.

As TLAV has extensively documented, the pandemic exercises are numerous. The most well-known simulation is likely Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise organized by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation partnered with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the World Economic Forum on October 18, 2019. Event 201 simulated how the world would respond to a fictional coronavirus pandemic known as CAPS which swept around the planet. The simulation imagined 65 million people dying, mass lock downs, quarantines, censorship of alternative viewpoints under the guise of fighting “disinformation,” and even floated the idea of arresting people who question the pandemic narrative.

Read moreThe SPARS Pandemic of 2025: Echo Chambers and Vaccine Opposition