The Us Pandemic team is supposed to be mobilizing BEFORE it is declared a pandemic by WHO so that they are prepared for when it is determined to be a pandemic by WHO. It is their job to be ahead of the virus not playing catchup because Oh yea.. we didn't even have a dedicated pandemic team anymore due to Trump in the first place.1) It was in Wuhan a lot of the work or the areas round there.
2) It COULD have just been a localised source of the illness. It's China who knows maybe a poisoned lot of rice or some cult doing a series of attacks on people using some unknown virus.
At the time some scientists were definitely saying to be on alert and prepare and such but WHO and others were saying to wasn't a threat at the time (this was mostly due to them getting a lot of criticism for the perceived over reaction to Bird Flu which turned out to be extremely mild.
‘Blinking Red’: A Running Timeline of How the Trump Administration Ignored Warnings, Misled the Public, and Made the Coronavirus Crisis Worse
This interactive timeline presents the important details about what Trump and his administration have and haven’t done about the coronavirus pandemic—every ignored warning; every needless, wasteful fight; and every tragic misstep they try to spin into success.
www.americanprogress.org