AUSTIN, Texas -- Consider yourselves warned. That was the message from a group of Texas A&M researchers two years ago about an impending pandemic.

They wrote an article in 2018, emphasizing the country's need to prepare and work with other countries to fight off such possibilities. The paper was called "Three reasons the U.S. is not ready for the next pandemic." It outlined the country's gaps, as well as called for U.S. officials to address the vulnerable medical supply chains.

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“It’s not that we haven’t known about these things,” said Dr. Gerald Parker, one of the scholars who wrote the paper and the Associate Dean for Global One Health at Texas A&M University. “But these haven’t hit our country before and I think that’s really the big difference. And even though someone like myself has been saying this day would come, I think it’s hard to get attention because we have a lot of things on our plate.”

Dr. Parker says if it had been elevated earlier, he thinks the country could have done a better job. The article even mentioned a potential shortage of medical grade masks, which many countries, including the U.S., are dealing with now.

“I think our dangerous vulnerability on supply chains and having a lot of our manufacturing essentially outsourced to China is turning out to be worse than most of us anticipated,” he said.

Dr. Parker noted the country will likely see a resurgence of cases in potentially three waves.

He also warned about reopening the economy too quickly. Click the video link above to watch our full interview with Dr. Parker.