I personally didn't know much about COVID early on obviously. I don't think anyone did. Hence this enormous thread. "We" here were searching for information about it, how bad it could be, what was happening in Italy, whether it would die out or be like 1918-19, whether a vaccine might be developed in time for anything, etc.
I haven't seen compelling clear evidence that folks in our government knew much about this and just didn't tell us (or Trump). I don't know why this would happen.