(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Utah Public Health Laboratory, 4431 S, 2700 West in Taylorsville, pictured on Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021. In the two decades before the COVID-19 outbreak, state and local health leaders had been bracing for a pandemic, spending hours in work group meetings, drafting planning documents and conducting training exercises for a disaster response. Yet, officials and advocates agree it was impossible to fully prepare for the novel coronavirus that emerged in late 2019 — and tore through a global population with no acquired immunity and few health interventions to stop it.