Weeks before President Donald Trump declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, Sen. Richard Burr privately offered a grim prognosis for the outbreak while previewing some of the massive disruptions soon to come, according to a previously unreported recording obtained by NPR.

In the recording, which NPR reports came from the North Carolina Republican's remarks at a private luncheon late last month, Burr said that the COVID-19 outbreak "is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic," which killed an estimated 50 million worldwide.


"There's one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history," said Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Burr also authored the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, the 2006 law that formulated the federal response to outbreaks.

In his comments to the Tar Heel Circle in North Carolina on Feb. 27, Burr gave attendees a chilling warning about the severity of the coronavirus at a time when there were only a little over a dozen reported confirmed cases in the U.S. and President Donald Trump was suggesting that number would drop down to zero in short order. Burr, too, had publicly declared confidence in the U.S. preparations for coronavirus, despite his darker assessment to the Tar Heel Circle.

Those public declarations of confidence were featured in a separate ProPublica report on Thursday indicating that Burr — who has access to regular intelligence briefings — sold between $580,000 and $1.6 million in stock in the weeks before the market began to collapse under the strain of coronavirus. That decision probably spared Burr severe financial pain. Progressive groups quickly called for an investigation and even demanded that Burr step down.

“As Intel chairman, @SenatorBurr got private briefings about Coronavirus weeks ago,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “Burr knew how bad it would be. He told the truth to his wealthy donors, while assuring the public that we were fine. THEN he sold off $1.6 million in stock before the fall. He needs to resign.“


A spokesperson for the senator quickly rebutted the notion that anything improper had happened, noting that Burr‘s stock sale came before the market began to show signs of strain.

“Senator Burr filed a financial disclosure form for personal transactions made several weeks before the U.S. and financial markets showed signs of volatility due to the growing coronavirus outbreak,“ the aide said. “As the situation continues to evolve daily, he has been deeply concerned by the steep and sudden toll this pandemic is taking on our economy. He supported Congress’ immediate efforts to provide $7.8 billion for response efforts and this week’s bipartisan bill to provide relief for American business and small families.”

Burr also responded sharply to the NPR report about his private remarks, calling it a “tabloid-style hit piece.“ He said the story left the impression that Americans weren‘t properly warned of the dire potential effects of coronavirus, and he said that impression was incorrect.

But Burr‘s backup for that was a Feb. 26 news conference in which Trump, alongside public health officials, sharply downplayed the risk of coronavirus, saying numbers in the U.S. were going “down, not up,“ and suggesting schools take precautions for a scenario that he considered unlikely to unfold. That was in sharp contrast to Burr‘s message to the North Carolina group a day later.


Burr instructed attendees to reconsider traveling to Europe, a suggestion that came about two weeks before the president announced a travel ban for foreigners coming to the U.S. from most of Europe.

"You may have to look at your employees and judge whether the trip they're making to Europe is essential or whether it can be done on video conference. Why risk it?" he asked the group.

The senator also said that the virus could prompt the shuttering of schools, something that happened in his home state a couple of weeks later.

“There will be, I'm sure, times that communities, probably some in North Carolina, have a transmission rate where they say, let's close schools for two weeks, everybody stay home,” he says in the recording.

Burr even forecast the mobilization of the military, something that has only begun to happen in recent days on a wider scale.

"We're going to send a military hospital there, it's going to be in tents and going to be set up on the ground somewhere," he predicted, noting that "It's going to be a decision the president and DoD make. And we're going to have medical professionals supplemented by local staff to treat the people that need treatment.”

Burr's tone in private went well beyond an op-ed he co-authored with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), reassuring Americans that although they were rightfully concerned about the outbreak, it was being properly handled by the authorities.

"Thankfully, the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress, and the Trump administration," the two senators wrote. "The work of Congress and the administration has allowed U.S. public health officials to move swiftly and decisively in the last few weeks."


The Trump administration has faced fierce criticism for not taking the outbreak seriously enough at its outset and for fumbling the early testing process — issues the White House is still scrambling to address.

There are now more than 9,000 reported cases in the U.S., and Americans have been advised to "hunker down" in an attempt to contain the spread of more infections.