As concern around the world increases about the global coronavirus outbreak, news has surfaced about an event co-hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in October 2019, in which 15 global business, government, and public health leaders took part in a simulation exercise based on responding to an international "coronavirus" pandemic.

The first report of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) currently spreading around the world occurred in November 2019.

The term "coronavirus" refers to a group of viruses rather than one unique strain, and the coronavirus discussed during October's Event 201 simulation exercise differed in a number of ways from the Covid-19 virus.

In the Event 201 simulation, the coronavirus disease starts in pig farms in Brazil and is transferred to humans, with a resulting death toll of 65 million people within 18 months — surpassing the deadliest pandemic in history, the 1918 Spanish flu.

Increased recent interest in the event is understandable, not least because one of the purposes of the event was to help international policymakers in their understanding of the challenges they could face if such a pandemic actually developed.