On March 17, 2021 at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) and in conjunction with the Nuclear Threats Institute (NTI) and sponsored by Open Philanthropy a tabletop simulation exercise was held which “focused on reducing high-consequence biological threats with potentially catastrophic consequences.”
The pathogen of choice for this event was an engineered, vaccine-resistant strain of monkeypox. [5]
This is the 3rd annual tabletop exercise organized by NTI’s Global Biological Policy and Programs team (NTI | bio) in conjunction with the MSC. [8]
This time the “fictional exercise scenario unfolded gradually through a series of short videos that participants reacted to during a facilitated discussion.” Similar to Event 201 in October 2019, which also was sponsored by facebook’s co-founder, Dustin Moskovitz of Open Philanthropy, who has investments in technologies that propose the solution for such a scenario and have benefited in this pandemic. [3, 4, 6]
From the simulation a report was produced which among other things stress that the “Scientific and political leaders must take bold action to safeguard the global bioscience and biotechnology research and development enterprise to ensure that catastrophic accidents or deliberate misuse do not lead to the next global pandemic.” [1, 2]
The simulation report the release date for the monkeypox was May 15, 2022 which “coincidentally” was accurate for the real event! [7]