SPARS 2017: How a Coronavirus Communications Script Drafted the Counter-Misinformation Architecture Two Years Before COVID

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 11:00:00 +0200

In October 2017 — two years and three months before the first documented COVID case in Wuhan — the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security published an 89-page document: “The SPARS Pandemic, 2025–2028: A Futuristic Scenario for Public Health Risk Communicators.” It was not a tabletop, not an NSC script like Dark Winter, not a transatlantic political format like Atlantic Storm. It was training material for press offices, PR professionals, risk communicators and agency spokespersons — a pre-written scenario meant to be read, not played.

Tabletop on ELIZA on Steroids — Critical AI Analysis

SPARS 2017: How a Coronavirus Communications Script Drafted the Counter-Misinformation Architecture Two Years Before COVID