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Operation Dark Winter was the code name for a senior-level bio-terrorist attack simulation conducted on June 22–23, 2001.[1][2][3] It was designed to carry out a mock version of a covert and widespread smallpox attack on the United States. Tara O'Toole and Thomas Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies (CCBS) / Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Randy Larsen and Mark DeMier of Analytic Services were the principal designers, authors, and controllers of the Dark Winter project...

Dark Winter's simulated scenario involved an initial localized smallpox attack on Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with additional smallpox attack cases in Georgia and Pennsylvania. The simulation was then designed to spiral out of control. This would create a contingency in which the National Security Council struggles to determine both the origin of the attack as well as deal with containing the spreading virus. By not being able to keep pace with the disease's rate of spread, a new catastrophic contingency emerges in which massive civilian casualties would overwhelm America's emergency response capabilities.

Last paragraph in the document:

MESSAGE DELIVERED TO MEETING. PRINTED COPY GIVEN TO ALL
1:00 30 minutes prior to conclusion of segment
The NY Times, Washington Post, and USA Today receive anonymous letters demanding
the immediate removal (one week) of all US forces from Saudi Arabia and all war ships
from the Persian Gulf. Failure to comply will result in renewed attacks on US, which
will include anthrax, plague and small pox. Each letter also contained a genetic
fingerprint of the smallpox strain matching the fingerprint of the strain causing the
current epidemic

The 2001 anthrax attacks, also known as Amerithrax (a blend of "America" and "anthrax", from its FBI case name),[3] occurred in the United States over the course of several weeks beginning on September 18, 2001, one week after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and to Democratic Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, killing five people and infecting 17 others. According to the FBI, the ensuing investigation became "one of the largest and most complex in the history of law enforcement"

A major focus in the early years of the investigation was bioweapons expert Steven Hatfill, who was eventually exonerated. Bruce Edwards Ivins, a scientist at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, became a focus around April 4, 2005. On April 11, 2007, Ivins was put under periodic surveillance and an FBI document stated that he was "an extremely sensitive suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks".[5] On July 29, 2008, Ivins committed suicide with an overdose of acetaminophen.

Federal prosecutors declared Ivins the sole culprit on August 6, 2008, based on DNA evidence leading to an anthrax vial in his lab.[7] Two days later, Senator Chuck Grassley and Representative Rush D. Holt, Jr. called for hearings into the Department of Justice and FBI's handling of the investigation.[8][9] The FBI formally closed its investigation on February 19, 2010.

David Friedman (/ˈfriːdmən/; born September 25, 1970), known professionally as David Benioff (/ˈbɛniɒf/),[1][2] is an American writer, director and producer. Along with his fellow collaborator D. B. Weiss, he is best known as co-creator, showrunner, and writer of Game of Thrones (2011–2019)..

The Liverpool site will work with other international centres to research the threat of emerging disruptive diseases..

A new scientific institute which aims to prevent future pandemics might have been able to save thousands of lives by accelerating vaccine development had it existed before December 2019, its researchers believe.

Liverpool’s new Pandemic Institute will include a new human challenge facility, where volunteers will test new vaccines and treatments under controlled conditions.

If vaccine candidates could have been tested during the first wave of infections, the jabs would have been ready months earlier, according to Professor Daniela Ferreira, the head of clinical sciences at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), and one of the new institute’s team.

The LSTM is one of seven universities, hospitals and local authorities in the city behind the institute, which launches on Monday with £10m funding from Innova medical group...