Play audio 1XChange playback rate from 1 to 1 Mute audio For the Israeli media, too, the novel coronavirus was no more than a distant rumor at the time, the far-off roar of a wave that hadn’t yet crashed on our shores. The first patients had been diagnosed in Wuhan, China a few weeks earlier, but the Chinese authorities made great efforts to hide the scale of the emerging disaster. MI, like most Western intelligence agencies, had no clue. And health ministries in most countries didn’t know much more. Like the effects of climate change, the possibility of a pandemic was not part of annual assessments then, and wasn’t considered a fit subject for Israeli intelligence agencies. This oversight will gradually be rectified in light of the lessons of the past year.