Military medical intelligence warnings gathered dust as public health struggled to define COVID-19

Public health officials failed to cite early warnings about the threat of COVID-19gathered through classifiedmilitary intelligence as the pandemiccrisis emerged a year ago, CBC News has learned an oversight described as a strategic failure by intelligence and public healthexperts.

For over seven decades, Canada and some of its closest allies have operated alargely secretformal exchange of military medical intelligence. That relationship regularly producestroves of highly detailed data on emerging health threats.

The small, specialized unit within the Canadian military's intelligence branch began producing warnings about COVID-19in early January of last year assessments based largelyon classified allied intelligence. Those warnings generallywerethree weeks ahead of other open sources, say defence insiders.

But documents show the Public Health Agency of Canada's (PHAC) COVID-19 rapid risk assessments which politicians and public servantsused to guide their choices in early days ofthe pandemic contained no input from the military's warnings, which remain classified.

Three of the five PHAC risk assessments obtained under access to information law byone of the country'sleading intelligence experts and CBC Newsshowfederal health officials relyingalmost exclusively on assessments from the World Health Organization.

Even those writing the risk assessmentreports acknowledged thedearth of intelligence.

Confidence level 'low'

"Due to the limited epidemiologic data from China, and limited virologic information available for the etiologic agent, the confidence level for this assessment is considered as 'low' and the algorithm outputs remain uncertain at this time," said the Feb. 2, 2020 PHACrisk assessment report.

The analysts at PHAC were uncertain because as the world learned later China was stonewalling the WHO about the extent of the Wuhanoutbreak and assuring international health experts that everything was under control.

Meanwhile, in the military medical community, alarm bells were ringing. In the U.S., the National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI), located in Fort Detrick, Maryland, was not only gathering raw intelligence through various classified means it was producing comprehensive assessments of the trajectory of the virus as of last February.

"This coronavirus pandemic is right in their wheelhouse, which is part of their core mission to be on the lookout for any early indications of infectious disease," said Dr. Jonathan Clemente, a physician practicing in Charlotte, North Carolina who has researched and written extensively about the history of medical intelligence.

'Strategic surprise'

The original purpose of military medical intelligence among the allies was to assess sanitary and health conditions in theplacesaround the globe where their troops were deployed.

But over the years, Clemente said, the mandate evolved to include "preventing strategic surprise" such aspandemics and deliberate biological attacks.

"So there's a wide range of reports, from your short-form daily bulletins to long-form assessments," he said.

"It's important to know that this is different from, say, the World Health Organization because the NCMIhas access to all-source intelligence, meaning they have access to the most secret levels of intelligence, including clandestine human reporting, satellites, signals intelligence and ...open [source]reporting."

The information gathered through such intelligence channelswould beknowledge"that other traditional health care and public health agencies" don't have, he added. It's also the kind of knowledgethat would haveinformed the Canadian military's medical intelligence branch as the pandemic was gathering momentum.

'A terrible failure'

The fact that PHAC didn'ttrackwhat the military medical intelligence branch was seeing,coupled withchanges tothe federal government's own Global Pandemic Health Information Network (GPHIN),represent"a terrible failure," said Wesley Wark, a University of Ottawa professorwho studies intelligence services and national security. He requestedthe documents through theaccess to information law.

The auditor general isreviewing what went wrong with the country's early warning system, including the risk assessments. Flaws in those assessmentsmay have affected the introductionof anti-pandemicmeasuressuch as border closuresand mask mandates.

A second, separate independent review of Canada's early pandemic responsehas beenordered by Health Minister Patty Hajdu.

CBC News first reported last spring that the military medical intelligence branch (MEDINT) began writing reports and issuing warnings about COVID-19 in January 2020. At the time,a spokesperson for MEDINTwould not comment "on the content of intelligence reports that we receive or share."

A follow-up investigation by CBC News hasshed more light on the long-established secret network the allies use to warn each other of health threats.

It's governed by an obscure forum goingby aratherclunky name: theQuadripartite Medical Intelligence Committee (QMIC).

A 'Five Eyes' network for pandemics

Originating in the Second World War, the forum allows the American, Canadian, British and Australian militaries to exchange classified global health data and assessments aboutemerging health threats.

Clemente describes it as the medicalequivalent of the better-known FiveEyes intelligence-sharing alliance between Canada, theUnited States, GreatBritain, Australia and New Zealand.

Clemente said that, through U.S. freedom of information law, he has compiled a comprehensive, declassified portrait of the deep health intelligence ties between allies especially between Canada and the U.S.

He said healsohas collected reports and analyses on how NCMI tracked and assessed previous pandemics and disease outbreaks, including SARS, H1N1 and Ebola.

Those assessments copies of which were obtained by CBC News are veryprecise and complete.The U.S. military's assessments of the novelcoronavirus and the disease it causesremain classified, but Clemente said it's certain thatNCMI was doing similar surveillance onCOVID-19which would have been shared with allies.

Wark said Canada's public health system was redesigned almost two decades ago with the aimof preventing "strategic surprise," but many of theinitiatives planned or implemented following the SARS outbreak were allowed to witheraway and die.

One 2004proposalwhich fell by the waysidewas tofinda mechanism that would allow PHAC to seamlessly incorporate classified intelligence into its system of reporting.

Greg Fyffe, the former executive director of the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat in the Privy Council Office (which supports the prime minister's office), said military medical intelligence assessments rarely came across his desk during his tenure a decade ago.

He said that when intelligence reportsreach thehighest levels of government, they often arrive insummary form and analysts occasionallyhave to seek out moredetails.

"There's so much intelligence information out there that it's not a matter of saying ... 'I have a little bit of something that you'd like to see,'" said Fyffe. "We're talking about huge volumes of material which can't all be shared."

In a year-end interview with theCBC'sRosemary Barton, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed the suggestionthat better early warnings could have stopped COVID-19 from spreading to Canada.

WATCH: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on pandemic early warnings

Trudeau looks back at early response to COVID-19

4 years ago

Duration 5:58

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talks to chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton about the lessons learned from his governments early response to the COVID-19 pandemic, what shouldve been done sooner and his conversations with U.S. President Donald Trump about shutting down non-essential travel along the border.

"I think we used all the resources that we always have to follow and monitor," hesaid. "I don't know that it would have made a huge difference for us to have extra reporting on top of what we were getting."

The prime minister said that, in hindsight, there were things "we probably would have wanted to have done sooner in terms of preparing," such as bolstering stocks of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies.

'We could have been much better prepared'

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjanindicated in a year-end interview thathe shared theinformation he had and there were "many conversations" within the government.

While he cautioned that military intelligence alone can't cover global disease surveillance, he didacknowledgethat Canada'searly warning mechanismsneeda serious review "from a whole-of-government perspective ... making sure we have the right sensors out."

Preparation is the whole point of early warning, said Wark, who agreed with Trudeau's assessment of the volatility of the novel coronavirus's transmission.

"We wouldn't have stopped it from coming to Canada," said Wark. "That would have been impossible. But we could have been much better prepared to meet its onslaught, and we were not. We suffered a terrible failure of early warning, of intelligence, of risk assessment.

"And the main lesson that has to be drawn ...from the experience of COVID-19is that we have to fix all of those things. We have to have a better early warning system."