We knew about it in late 2019 because it had already been detected in China.
“The world did not know this novel coronavirus was called Covid-19 until February 2020, when the World Health Organization officially named it”
Yes, this stupid. Our spy agencies would know about it way, way earlier than that datem
Yes and there is “one weird trick” called backdating. No time machine needed
Government contracting for efforts just don’t pop up out of the blue on the day the contract is let. In many cases, the background work can take a couple of years.
First, the eventual contracting officer’s ‘agent’ does internal agency work in identifying a problem or need which is within the agency’s scope, then come justifications and funding profiles and proposed schedules, etc. If sufficiently large enough in expenditure, even overall agency budgeting has to be programmed and marked, and if outside the normal funding profile identified and lobbied for a Congressional line item....
In my experience in being associated with programs from idea-to-implementation for something that got fast-tracked, the shortest time I knew of was about two years.