Barack Obama told the United States how to prepare for a pandemic way back in 2014

Footage has emerged of Barack Obama giving a clear and concise way for the United States to effectively combat a pandemic – back in 2014.

As Donald Trump continues to deflect blame for the spread of coronavirus in the US, it would appear that his predecessor already had a plan in place to fight highly contagious diseases.

During a speech in December 2014, not long after the Ebola crisis threatened to sweep across the globe, Obama spoke at the National Institutes of Health and praised their work in preventing that particular health crisis.

In his address, which was also a plea for the senate to pass through a funding bill, the then-president laid out the importance of having an infrastructure in place for the entire world, in case a new type of flu should ever materialise.

He said:

The funding we're asking for is needed to keep strengthening our capacity here at home so we can respond to any future Ebola cases.

It's needed to help us partner with other countries to prevent and deal with future outbreaks and threats before they become epidemics.

We were lucky with H1N1 that it did not prove to be more deadly. We can't say we're lucky with Ebola because obviously it's having a devastating effect in West Africa, but it is not airborne in its transmission.

There may and likely will come a time in which we have both an airborne disease that is deadly. And in order for us to deal with that effectively, we have to put in place an infrastructure, not just here at home, but globally that allows us to isolate it quickly, see it quickly, respond to it quickly.

So that if and when a new strain of flu, like the Spanish flu, crops up five years from now or a decade from now, we've made the investment and we're further along to be able to catch it. 

It's a smart investment for us to make. It's not just insurance; it is knowing that down the road we're gonna continue to have problems like this – particularly in a globalised world where you move from one side of the world to the other in a day.

So it's important now, but it's also important for our future and our children's future, and our grandchildren's future.

A clip of this speech has been uncovered by Now This News, which compares Obama stressing the need for preparedness to Trump, who was reportedly briefed on the seriousness of coronavirus in January but was still downplaying its threat in March.

The clip has since been widely shared by many using it as an example of just how badly Trump has handled this crisis and how reassuring and prepared Obama could be.

At the time of writing, the United States has more than 395,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, more than any other country in the world, with at least 12,000 of those resulting in deaths.