Think of coronavirus as a test run: Australian military leaders warn we must prepare for worse

As Australia was swept by panic buying and medical shortages this year, the scenes were eerily familiar for one of the country's most senior military planners.

Cheryl Durrant was the Department of Defence director of preparedness
 and mobilisation and warns Australia must do more to prepare for crises.

In a secret meeting only a year earlier, the Defence Department's director of preparedness Cheryl Durrant and a group of Australian industry leaders had predicted a strikingly similar scenario.

"We predicted the unpredictable," says Ms Durrant, who left the department in January.

"We knew the problems, we knew this might be coming, we knew that various things needed to be done."

The ABC has obtained a confidential report prepared for Defence just a year before the COVID-19 outbreak, which provides a forecast of Australia's vulnerabilities in a global crisis.

Read the ABC News story by Sean Rubinsztein and Kate Taylor - “Think of coronavirus as a test run: Australian military leaders warn we must prepare for worse.”