Bill Gates went on Trevor Noah’s “The Faily Show” to announce that he would fund the building of several factories to produce vaccines for the coronavirus. He expects that only two will be successful, which means he will “waste” a few billion dollars. But since he is worth about $110 billion, this is no big loss.
This is great news, given the incompetence of the Trump administration, which expects every state to take care of its own problems.
At last, Gates is spending his billions for a worthy cause!
He should definitely concentrate his charity on global health.
Thanks, Bill!

Thank you Bill Gates for caring about the health of other people.
LikeLike
Joney-
You part of the Gates PR team?
If so, that recent article in The Nation must have been a bump in the road for the team.
LikeLike
I wouldn’t wish Bill Gates on anyone! Read the article in Politico 5/4/17 “Meet the world’s most powerful doctor: Bill Gates: The software mogul’s sway over the World Health Organization spurs criticism about misplaced priorities and undue influence.”
Bill Gates is a college dropout who knows as much about medicine/science as he does about quality public education. ZERO!
Bill uses his “foundation” to make money. It isn’t about being some benevolent person. Ask the people of India who have been harmed or had children killed by his vaccines (and his GMO Golden Rice- stocks in Monsanto).
LikeLike
The U.S. isn’t China. China built two hospitals in Wuhan with a thousand beds each in 10 days, staffed them and checked in the first patient on day eleven.
How long will it take to build new factories in the U.S.?
LikeLike
NJ is doing its share:
A new pop-up hospital that was built in seven days at Meadowlands Exposition Center is designed to take overflow patients from acute care facilities crowded with COVID-19 patients. The hospital will open on Monday. A second field hospital is slated to open in Edison on April 8.
https://planetprinceton.com/2020/04/05/first-nj-pop-up-hospital-ready-to-relieve-crowded-covid-19-emergency-tooms/
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing. I think NYC is doing something similar but mostly with hotel rooms.
Using another building that isn’t being used and putting up cubicles separated by curtains inside that unused building is better than nothing. I have also seen photos showing what looks like insulated, military field-hospital tents (MASH units use in a war zone) set up in grassy park-like areas.
But the two 1,000 bed hospitals I mentioned that were built in Wuhan in 10 days were complete hospitals built on vacant land. When completed, each one was a hospital staffed with over a thousand medical military personnel — not a converted Exposition Center. When the pandemic is over, they will not revert back to something else like a park or Exposition Center. They will probably still be used as hospitals since that is what they were built from the ground up to become.
LikeLike
factories? have you done any research on the history of viruses, vaccines, adverse events caused by vaccines. Bill Gates is self interested. He’s a socio-path looking to make profits off the lives of the working class and helping to de-populate in the process.
LikeLike
Don’t we need a vaccine before factories can produce them?
LikeLike
Evidently, what he is doing is taking the seven most promising vaccines in development and building capacity for manufacturing of each, knowing that eventually, all but one or two of these will be shut down, as trials of the vaccines rule some out. But the idea is that those factories will be ready sooner.
LikeLike
“When will a coronavirus vaccine be ready?” reported today
“Human trials will begin imminently – but even if they go well and a cure is found, there are many barriers before global immunization is feasible …
“About 35 companies and academic institutions are racing to create such a vaccine, at least four of which already have candidates they have been testing in animals. The first of these – produced by Boston-based biotech firm Moderna – will enter human trials imminently. …
“Clinical trials, an essential precursor to regulatory approval, usually take place in three phases. The first, involving a few dozen healthy volunteers, tests the vaccine for safety, monitoring for adverse effects. The second, involving several hundred people, usually in a part of the world affected by the disease, looks at how effective the vaccine is, and the third does the same in several thousand people. But there’s a high level of attrition as experimental vaccines pass through these phases. “Not all horses that leave the starting gate will finish the race,” says Bruce Gellin, who runs the global immunisation programme for the Washington DC-based nonprofit, the Sabin Vaccine Institute. …
“There are good reasons for that. Either the candidates are unsafe, or they’re ineffective, or both. Screening out duds is essential, which is why clinical trials can’t be skipped or hurried. …
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/05/when-will-a-coronavirus-vaccine-be-ready
There’s a lot of information in this piece that I did not copy and paste. Click the link to learn more.
LikeLike
who do you think will PROFIT off these “vaccines”? have you read about the risks associated w/ vaccination? go to NVIC.ORG to learn about the Vaccine Injury Court, about toxins in vaccines, history of our dangerous vaccination program through the decades. Here is one clip from an article at NVIC
“It was in 1960 that an NIH scientist named Bernice Eddy discovered that rhesus monkey kidney cells used to make the Salk polio vaccine and experimental oral polio vaccines could cause cancer when injected into lab animals. Later that year the cancer-causing virus in the rhesus monkey kidney cells was identified as SV40 or simian virus 40, the 40th monkey virus to be discovered. (Shorter, e. 1987. The Health Century) Sadly, the American people were not told the truth about this in 1960. The SV40 contaminated stocks of Salk polio vaccine were never withdrawn from the market but continued to be given to American children until early 1963 with full knowledge of federal health agencies. Between 1955 and early 1963, nearly 100 million American children had been given polio vaccine contaminated with the monkey virus, SV40. (Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences . 2002. Immunization Safety Review: SV40 Contamination of Polio Vaccine and Cancer. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press) ”
What we do not know can kill us.
LikeLike
The photo accompanying the article is priceless.
A few tax free billions which are worthless to Gates because he’s so rich he could never spend the money in his lifetime. He must have been privy to the info. about the impending virus through his big footprint at NIH. Where has he been since Dec.-Jan. ? Trevor Noah should have asked Gates if he’s got a respirator stockpiled for personal use. Trevor should have asked him his opinion about the whining over his taxes at the prospect of Sanders being elected. Fast forward a couple of months, 30% of Americans are even poorer.
LikeLike
Exactly! We cannot allow Bill Gates to come out of this looking like a hero when he’s part of the cause to begin with. If he (and all the other billionaires) would have been paying proper taxes all along, the government would have more resources to deal with this in the first place. And if he would have been paying his workers and providing them proper benefits all along, they would not be in the dire situations they’re in now.
Gates is being lauded for his prescience in his TED talk which predicted a pandemic years ago. But then, where has he been advocating for new hospitals, or, at the very least, a stop to the destruction of hospitals since then? Where has he been arguing against running hospitals like businesses and keeping supplies only on an as-needed basis to avoid warehousing fees? Where has he been arguing for single payer healthcare, or at least some system of healthcare that doesn’t bankrupt people for the crime of getting sick? He can’t ride to the rescue now and pretend he’s some kind of white knight.
And, in any case, based on his past record, it remains to be seen how these efforts will unfold going forward. Will they be collaborative ventures with multiple different stakeholders and experts having voice? Or, like all other Gates ventures, will they be competitive, dog-eat-dog ventures in which information and resources are horded so that only the “winners” will “succeed”? Will Gates cede control to actual experts, or will he be the “leading” expert because, after all, he’s clearly the smartest man on the planet (excuse me while I throw up)? And, perhaps most importantly, will this “philanthropy” end up benefiting his own bottom line just like his “educational” (sic) “philanthropy” (sic) benefits his bottom line? Will these new ventures, for instance, be confined to using Microsoft products, even though computer experts pretty much unanimously agree that you can’t actually do anything useful with Microsoft products (every programmer and computer scientist and general tech geek I know uses Apple products)?
We here on this blog are well familiar with Gates’ toxic impact on education. Please don’t assume his impact on health is any less toxic.
LikeLike
No one could have said it better than you have, Dienne.
Gates goes on national T.V. to pat himself on the back. He and his wife are publicity seeking narcissists.
Where’s the humility in giving that Christ spoke of – evidently, not in the teachings of the Christian church that Bill and Melinda Gates participate in.
Are they hiding out somewhere to avoid Covid 19 similar to the rest of the rich?
LikeLike
Dienne, Bill Gates is a hideous monster, and he has been aided an abetted by the U. S. government for years. Maybe he rot. He does not stand for democracy or the American way.
LikeLike
I agree with you, Dienne.
He is obviously hungry for publicity and praise.
My hope is that he will stick to public health and leave education alone.
LikeLike
Gates has an efficient PR firm that polishes his image 24/7 while working to suppress any news of his dark side that is much bigger than his sunny side.
LikeLike
Bill Gates will not leave education alone and focus, instead, only on world health.
He is a malignant narcissist and thinks he knows best because he’s rich. It’s his way or the highway, and never mind about democracy. All of these rich American princes and princesses are like spoiled children gone awry . . . with no rules and boundaries, and the federal government is their carefree, hands-off mommy and daddy who have created the monster with their crap-hole parenting.
Meantime, the rest of us are the red headed stepchildren who put up with this but are taught to be dutiful, pious, and loving towards our parents . . . and like children, we are so eager to please.
LikeLike
“My hope is that he will stick to public health and leave education alone.”
I wish I could claim credit for this because it was brilliant, but I can’t remember who posted this last time this topic came up: “Somewhere there’s a health researcher wishing that Gates would just stick to education and leave public health alone”.
LikeLike
I must agree with most of what you have said. However he has paid his employees well and his taxes are significant.
I object to his portending to being an authority on everything. He has the billions-so do something good with it that helps humanity. There are far too many who dump dollars into schemes that benefit political causes. How about helping the world? This is a capitalistic country. The private sector can solve this mess. I applaud Gates desire to help. Where are the others?
LikeLike
“I applaud Gates desire to help. ”
I also have a desire to help. Why not applaud me? I guarantee you, I am incapable of doing as much damage in my lifetime as Gates could and would in one minute.
How many times are we willing to fall for Gates’ offer to “help”? What we love here, on this blog, is his helping hand in education, like Common Core, individual learning, charter schools.
Is he buying political influence? How the heck else did he push CC down our throat?
How do you think it has happened that many countries’ education systems have adopted Windows as the official operating system? How did the same thing happen at many (hundreds+) US public colleges, and now they all fight computer viruses and security probléems—using security “solutions” also from Microsoft?
Here is what is going to happen: people will support Gates’ vaccine factory program. A few months later we’ll find out the enormous number of strings attached, plus the design flaws in the implementation, plus how the program ended up slowing down proper research, but by then it’s late, all politicians are for the whole thing, either because of direct support from Gates or because of their usual ignorance, or because of Fox’s propaganda for it.
You are right, it will go as all capitalistic projects, except this is not supposed to be a capitalistic project.
If we accept Gates, Koch, Waltons as facts of our lives, we accept that the US will be lead by these people in their criminally corrupt ways forever.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April, I am not applauding our “capitalistic” society and how slanted it is to make Gates richer and enable him to become the infant terrible that he is. It should not take private sector to solve major problems. I pay taxes and demand seeming in return for them besides a bloated military and tax cuts to the über rich.
I will applaud the vaccine, whoever develops it. I will use the strengthened health of this country – post-vaccine – to help depose people like Gates and Trump. A plutocrat is a plutocrat. The power lies in the people, not the few hyper-rich who are perceived to be super heroes or saviors. The rich are NOT interested in us other than for what they can extract from us.
LikeLike
Yes, I forgot that he complained that Sanders and Warren wanted to take his money away.
LikeLike
He need not worry about that any more.
Besides, if he actually does succeed in developing a vaccine for covid 19, it will yield quite a return on investment, especially if he patents it.
LikeLike
“He” is not developing a vaccine. “He” is providing funding for “experts” in the field to develop a vaccine. Our taxes could do the same thing if he paid his, and the Trump administration could their heads out of their sss. Perhaps this is the situation in which his direct funding is the better path if he can keep his hands off and let them do the work. Any decisions about directions should be left to an expert panel who can actually evaluate progress without considering profit, not including Bill.
LikeLike
Forgive my loose language.
Didn’t mean to imply Bill would be down in the lab in his basement developing vaccines.😀
LikeLike
Didn’t think you did. Just emphasizing his hubris. Can’t you just see them naming a vaccine the Gates vaccine?
LikeLike
Let me iterate and reiterate.
I wrote this post congratulating Bill Gates for spending billions to support scientists trying to develop a vaccine for two reasons.
One, it is a good way for him to spend some of his more than $100 billion. Two, I hope he will stop experimenting with education and using his money to impose his own uninformed theories on schools. He seems to be willing to leave the search for a vaccine to professionals, but he doesn’t want to leave education to the professionals. Let’s hope he sticks with public health and leaves education alone.
LikeLike
I hope you are right, Diane. He doesn’t have the best of track records. I like the old system of philanthropy where they gave their money and kept their hands off how it was used beyond gifting it to a particular organization or purpose. too often nowadays the money given is tied up with self serving ribbons.
LikeLike
Just ask the medical folks in Africa about Bill Gates. They don’t have much good to say about him and his money. He should just pay his taxes and be done with it. I don’t want anything he has to offer….health or education.
LikeLike
I am glad he is contributing, but I hope it’s not another LLC or a tax avoidance scheme.
LikeLike
Awesome.
LikeLike
Totally awesome.
LikeLike
Building the factories is not the same as actually testing the vaccines, and these tests must be randomized control trials (RCTs) with human beings.
A factory is a building. RCTs are not done in factories.
They are done in high-tech laboratories first and with small groups. Good prospects for a vaccine are given field trials. Manufacturing is the last stage of the whole process.
My guess is that Gates will build high tech labs and these will be in fairly close proximity to populations that are easy to recruit for RCTs. Gates is known to have worked on related issues with Ebola and malaria with populations in Africa and in Asia.
This article may also be misleading, a case of poor journalism.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Let’s listen to him. He an expert, after all.
LikeLike
He looks like he about to break into a rendition of “Singing in the Rain”
LikeLike
I noticed that. Very odd, hmm?
LikeLike
Even looks like he’s holding an umbrella behind him
LikeLike
Bill-
Before you do that, can you help get Microsoft Teams working so that students can upload documents? Our district did pay you a lot, after all.
Thanks.
Latin teacher
FL
LikeLike
Hear, hear!!
LikeLike
I’m so glad he’s doing this. We needed, two months ago, a massive, centralized, federal response, but our country is run by an idiot. This is one of the steps that needed to be taken. It’s an extremely important one.
LikeLike
Here’s one step that needs to be taken right now. The President needs to call on all states to enforce stay-at-home orders, and he needs to call on governors to implement an immediate moratorium on evictions and foreclosures. He also needs to ask K-12 schools to close their stupid online classes–a waste of time and resources and, in the case of work packets being picked up or delivered, quite dangerous. And, of course, our cognitively challenged President, who has referred to the Defense Production Act as “reeking of Socialism,” needs to be making maximum use of this to order development of PPE and ventilators and testing equipment, as well as tests for SARS-Cov2 and antibodies to it.
LikeLike
Bob,
Silly you. Trump calls himself a “wartime leader,” but he has no intention of leading. He’s leaving it to counties, cities, and states to decide whatever they want.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Viruses do not respect borders. And so you cannot have a piecemeal response. It was insane that we in Flor-uh-duh, for example, had hundreds of thousands of Spring Breakers from all over the country on our beaches and in our taverns all through the month of February. Trump spoke of the “invisible enemy” that we are facing, but I could see him, Trump, quite clearly. The Moronavirus.
LikeLike
DT-moron-virus
LikeLike
This pandemic requires a strong centralized response. We have a patchwork, like charter schools. If one state is on lock down, and the neighboring state is not, it starts the whole cycle again. It is dumb.
LikeLike
In some states, decisions are left to counties and cities. Ridiculous.
LikeLike
Maybe breaking up cities into small learning communities will solve the problem. If it doesn’t, we can just abandon the project and move on to something else. Hey, maybe giving families choice will solve it; we’ll build charter cities. We could make a choice website, GreatCities.org. How about if we use VAM to stop coronavirus! Ooh! We can use big data analytics to see which cities are raising antibody scores, and close all the cities that aren’t meeting our value added predictions. What, are you afraid of being evaluated? Yes? Okay, how about if everyone raises chickens? Micro-loans? Mobile banking? Maybe Monsanto can help us…
Sorry, I don’t mean to be sarcastic about Bill Gates’ philanthropy. Wait, yes I do. The B&M Gates Foundation has a long history of destroying everything it touches.
LikeLike
And sheesh, what happens if Gates finds the vaccine? Trump was trying to invest in finding the vaccine. Would Gates own the vaccine? Would he stand to profit, set the price, and decide who gets vaccinated and who doesn’t? What other leverages and powers over governments the world over would his finding a vaccine create for him?
Gates should pay much higher taxes, high enough to prevent philathrocapitalism.
LikeLike
I say take his philanthro-capitalism (which is slowly starting to replace the true functions of government) and get vaccinated to live long enough to remove his excessive power from him, and seize a fair share of his money to fuel the tax base for the public commons. That’s how you use Bill Gates. That’s what he’s good for.
Other than that, he’s a disgrace.
LikeLike
Have you ever read “The Education of Little Tree”?
When Little Tree’s grandfather dies, he wanted to be buried at the foot of an old tree so his body would keep it alive longer.
That’s the only thing Bill Gates would be useful for. Anyone have a tree they want to recommend that deserves the fertilizer?
LikeLike
Humans don’t generally make good fertilizer unless they’ve been vegan for a significant period of time. Too much animal protein to break down.
LikeLike
Mmm, I’ve been a vegan since 1982. I wonder what Gates’ lifestyle is.
LikeLike
That was my first thought as well.
Such a vaccine could easily be worth tens if not hundreds of billions to anyone who patents it.
Has Gates already applied for patents on or filed invention disclosures on promising ideas for producing vaccines?
It’s no secret that Microsoft has a big interest in patents
http://techrights.org/2018/06/05/microsoft-and-troll-indirection/
LikeLike
Coronavirus reveals huge holes in our social safety net, and also reveals the dangers of our tenuous reliance on philanthropy to solve problems—when donors choose to invest in solving them. We rely on billionaires who will not lift a finger to help unless there is something in it for them. I haven’t forgotten what I read in Winners Take All by Girdharadas. Gates always wants return on investment.
We are in dire straits because our government does not levy progressive taxes on billionaires to fund scientific research for the benefit of all, minus the profiteering. Sure, Gates building research labs is okay, even though it’s fraught with problems. It would be far better, though, if the United States government were using its far greater resources to do the research. We’re in a heck of a neoliberal pickle.
LikeLike
We have a federal government that has abandoned its leadership in a time of crisis. Jared Kushner and Trump insist that the federal stockpile of ventilators does not belong to the states, and that only Kushner and Trump control where they will go. We have a war with no leader.
LikeLike
Trump is the extreme version of Reagan saying government is the problem, so we have no leadership. It’s a fact. You’re right. Reliance on greedy Bill Gates to handle what should be government functions is the way it is. It’s a fact. It’s terrible but true.
LikeLike
Give him his due. He is stepping in where there is a terrible gap in the federal response and doing something extremely important about it. What’s the other side of this thing? Having enormous quantities of a working vaccine as soon as possible. Kudos to him for this. And gratitude.
LikeLike
Enormous quantities. Billions of doses. Ready to produce and distribute quickly.
LikeLike
Bob, I would love to give hm his due. Most would not agree with my due.
LikeLike
This is not about Bill Gates but I wasn’t sure where to post this news:
https://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-youths-bring-lawsuit-over-state-energy-policy/article_7308239b-daf9-56bd-af82-597e9668b005.html
LikeLike
i was stunned by the headline at the beginning of this blog. Thank you , thank you to all of you who were on the side of “just maybe anything Bill Gates touches is poison.” How could anyone who knows what he has done to public education possibly trust him? And, Bob, you want a vaccine? Don’t worry it’s coming, and there will be many of them. It’s called Healthy People 2020, mandatory vaccines for adults. Oh, we’ll be giving up our right to informed consent regarding medical procedures, oh, well. Here’s a relevant article https://www.globalresearch.ca/coronavirus-no-vaccine-needed-cure/5708327
LikeLike
Are you serious?! Come back when you know what you are talking about. There is a reason why people have not gone out and emptied the shelves of Turmeric (Curcumin). IT IS NOT GOING TO CURE YOUR COVID-19!
LikeLike
A friendly warning: people are being prosecuted around the country, and rightly so, for spreading nonsense about “cures” for Covid-19. One of these was the televangelist faith healer and con man Jim Baker. Yes, there are various things that one can eat that are anti-inflammatory. No, these are not Covid-19 cures. One hopes that some state or federal agency will take such action against the folks who created the web page you cited.
LikeLike
Sorry to be so blunt, but taking this kind of psuedo-science seriously can kill people.
LikeLike
cx pseudoscience
LikeLike
Wherever Gates goes, tradgedy follows. He is the virus.
LikeLike
Gates is only one virus. Trump is another virus. Betsy DeVos is another one. The Walmart Walton family is another virus. Charles Kock … et al.
LikeLike
Please don’t shine a lite on bill gates. He is not a medical doctor and just because he has money does not make him good or a medical doctor. Look deep into his track record. He is experimented on poor people in third world countries to promote his vaccines. They have caused injury and were done at times WITHOUT consent. Be careful not all billionaires are trustworthy. He wants to put microchips in us to flag us for his vaccines. Do you think that is philanthropy? I look at that as taking away my democratic rights. I certainly do not trust him with my “information”.
>
LikeLike
For anyone confused as to what kind of person Gates is: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy-microsoft
LikeLike
Yep.
And, remember folks…. Gates knows as little about medicine and drug production as he does about education. He got rich by sewing up patent rights.
LikeLike
Thanks for the timely reminder, Dienne
LikeLike
Opposition to vaccination
is certainly its own reward,
but science-denying perorations
cost lives that then can’t be restored,
a terrible cost of such great folly
to every Alice, Jim, and Molly.
LikeLike
As of two days ago, South Dakota didn’t have a lock down order A state’s Republican representative and his niece died yesterday from Covid 19.
New reporting informs us that most people who have Covid 19 and are on ventilators die.
LikeLike
Personally, I wouldn’t let Bill Gates set up hospitals. He’ll use buggy Microsoft products everywhere there, and he’ll use the opportunity to now collect medical data. It’s not worth it. The few billions he contributes makes no difference in this battle.
What could make a difference if an emergency wealth tax was instituted on the filthy rich.
LikeLike
Emergency wealth tax- YES
LikeLike
Personally, j wouldn’t let Gates set up a lemonade stand.
But that’s just me.
LikeLike
This is the problem: there are many places where help would be needed. Gates’ pick is tobuild factories to make vaccines. That’s his evaluation (not experts’) of where money is most urgently needed.
He is just the expert in world affairs.
LikeLike
The lemonade would be full of bugs, for sure
LikeLike
“Gates Listens to no one”
If God asked Bill
To have a greet
She’d have to kill
Him first, to meet
LikeLike
How about cleaning portable toilets?
LikeLike
Bill Gates should just pay taxes and let the experts do this. There will be if not already strings attached.
LikeLike
So the big question is what to use for live teaching instead of zoom? It needs to be secure, and not to use users’ data. How is Wire?
LikeLike
My grandson is in the first grade. His class and teacher were meeting three times a day on Zoom.
His parents just learned that the NYC public schools are dropping Zoom and they are very unhappy.
Just when they got used to it, it is being replaced.
The Department of Education unilaterally decided that there would be no spring break this year. Spring break covered Good Friday and Passover. Teachers have been told that they have to use a sick day if they want to take the day for religious observances.
That stinks.
LikeLike
In my opinion, the only fair thing to do is close schools. Otherwise, the students with no access to Internet will lose, and get behind even more.
LikeLike
By the way, I am also using Zoom to teach my courses, but now I am trying to figure out what to replace it with. Just thinking about how I would have to explain the switch to the students and how long it would take for me to write up a userguide make me sweat. And these are college kids. For K-8 kids, this sounds like a nightmare. And all this pain because some people think, kids shouldn’t be out of school for couple of months.
LikeLike
What’s the rationalefor not giving spring break?
The security flaws in Zoom allow the attacker to take over the user’s camera and even the whole windows computer. So the flaws are serious. The thing is that these flaws have been known for months, even years, so education departments should have advised teachers on what software to use in the very beginning of the crisis. Now they are making one hasty decision after another.
LikeLike
Mate
I think there needs to be an independent governmental body with the expertise to evaluate software like Zoom, either give it a stamp of approval or reject it.
School districts, education departments and even many colleges don’t have the expertise , money and time required to do such an evaluation.
It’s actually crazy that there is currently no national standards committee evaluating software and hardware used in schools. At least not that I am aware of.
LikeLike
Good idea. Is there a standards committee evaluating the security of voting machines?
LikeLike
This is a Bill Gates PR stunt. The factories that will produce the COVID-19 vaccine already exist. How do I know this? Because they already produce the annual flu vaccine for the entire nation and maybe the world.
LikeLike
Odd that?
The medical doctor who headed the Gates Foundation, resigned 4 mos. ago, Dec. 5. 2019 and was replaced by a guy with credentials in international relations, who, while at the Gates Foundation, developed and measured strategic priorities,… Formerly, he worked at the Financial Times.
The long term relationship between the Gates Foundation and NIH, any conjoined effort in preparedness for pandemics?
Hmmm… the system may need changing… the richest, most visionary man in the world and his Impatient Optimists shouldn’t be shackled from speaking out by cultural norms like democracy when we are talking about healthcare and education….oh, wait….did that ship and its consequences already sail?
LikeLike
Before jumping on the band wagon and braising Bill Gates maybe we should look more deeply behind the scene:
“Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vac ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control over global health policy—the spear tip of corporate neo-imperialism.
Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems fueled by a messianic conviction that he is ordained to save the world with technology and a god-like willingness to experiment with the lives of lesser humans.
Promising to eradicate Polio with $1.2 billion, Gates took control of India ‘s National Advisory Board (NAB) and mandated 50 polio vaccines (up from 5) to every child before age 5. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating vaccine-strain polio epidemic that paralyzed 496,000 children between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian Government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and evicted Gates and his cronies from the NAB. Polio paralysis rates dropped precipitously. In 2017, the World Health Organization reluctantly admitted that the global polio explosion is predominantly vaccine strain, meaning it is coming from Gates’ Vaccine Program. The most frightening epidemics in Congo, the Philippines, and Afghanistan are all linked to Gates’ vaccines. By 2018, ¾ of global polio cases were from Gates’ vaccines.
In 2014, the GatesFoundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by GSK and Merck, on 23,000 young girls in remote Indian provinces. Approximately 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms, and refusing medical care to the injured girls. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.
In 2010, the Gates Foundation funded a trial of a GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects including paralysis, seizure, and febrile convulsions to 1,048 of the 5,049 children.
During Gates 2002 MenAfriVac Campaign in Sub-Saharan Africa, Gates operatives forcibly vaccinated thousands of African children against meningitis. Between 50-500 children developed paralysis. South African newspapers complained, “We are guinea pigs for drug makers”
Nelson Mandela’s former Senior Economist, Professor Patrick Bond, describes Gates’ philantropic practices as “ruthless” and “immoral”.
In 2010, Gates committed $10 billion to the WHO promising to reduce population, in part, through new vaccines. A month later Gates told a Ted Talk that new vaccines “could reduce population”. In 2014, Kenya’s Catholic Doctors Association accused the WHO of chemically sterilizing millions of unwilling Kenyan women with a phony “tetanus” vaccine campaign.
Independent labs found the sterility formula in every vaccine tested.
After denying the charges, WHO finally admitted it had been developing the sterility vaccines for over a decade.
Similar accusations came from Tanzania, Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines.
A 2017 study (Morgensen et.Al.2017) showed that WHO’s popular DTP is killing more African than the disease it pretends to prevent. Vaccinated girls suffered 10x the death rate of unvaccinated children.
Gates and the WHO refused to recall the lethal vaccine which WHO forces upon millions of African children annually.
Global public health advocates around the world accuse Gates of – hijacking WHO’s agenda away from the projects that are proven to curb infectious diseases; clean water, hygiene, nutrition and economic development.
They say he has diverted agency resources to serve his personal fetish – that good health only comes in a syringe.
In addition to using his philanthropy to control WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and PATH, Gates funds private pharmaceutical companies that manufacture vaccines, and a massive network of pharmaceutical industry front groups that broadcast deceptive propaganda, develop fraudulent studies, conduct surveillance and psychological operations against vaccine hesitancy and use Gates’ power and money to silence dissent and coerce compliance.
In this recent nonstop Pharmedia appearances, Gates appears gleeful that the Covid-19 crisis will give him the opportunity to force his third-world vaccine programs on American children.”
There is so much more info out there about this evil man if you are willing to look. He is not a philanthropist, scientist or doctor; he is a psychopath.” -Robert F Kennedy Jr
LikeLike
“Before jumping on the band wagon and braising Bill Gates”
Alision, I know that “braising” was a typo and you probably meant “praising”, but lets run with that excellent typo, if that’s what it was.
“Braising (from the French word braiser) is a combination-cooking method that uses both wet and dry heats: typically, the food is first sautéed or seared at a high temperature, then finished in a covered pot at a lower temperature while sitting in some (variable) amount of liquid (which may also add flavor).”
I’m all for braising Bill Gates. I’m a vegan and won’t share in that meal, but I understand there are still cannibals still living in a remote locations in New Guinea.
LikeLike
I am not a vegetarian, but I do won’t eat that meat even it’s gourmet braised.
LikeLike
That is why I suggested we send that braised meal to the remotest areas of New Guinea after it is cooked and ready to serve.
LikeLike
Wow, this story is really bad, though not surprising. Btw, Soros also has this measianistic belief in himself, as he admitted.
LikeLike
“In 2010, Gates committed $10 billion to the WHO promising to reduce population, in part, through new vaccines.”
Maybe Dan Brown’s Inferno was inspired by Gates’ above actions. Similar ideas fueled Thanos in the Avengers’s Endgame movie.
I am sure the idea of controlling the population increase with vaccines, sterilization or other biological means is old, and it’s not Gates who came up with it. Usually, the people who come up with these ideas think, their lineage should be preserved.
LikeLike
I think Gates got those ideas from his father.
“Decreasing Population Through Better Health Care?
… “As did Sanger, Gates believes in the eugenist Thomas Malthus’s idea that the sustainability of the world’s resources is completely dependent upon maintaining population control. Ironically, Gates believes that improving health care, primarily through vaccinations, will accomplish this.” …
https://www.catholicstand.com/eugenics-in-america/
LikeLike
Mate,
I’ve thought a lot about the Guardian article you posted here, citing the 12 scientists who say that the world is overreacting to COVID-19. They said that a few weeks ago. I wonder if they say the same now and if they personally refuse to wear face masks and gloves.
LikeLike
Diane, it wasn’t a Guardian article but an off-Gardian one. I knew nothing about that journal, but it seems to pride itself with publishing articles that look unbias. As you pointed out, the tone of the article about the 12 scientists who urged us to hold back on the strict measures against Covid-19 was condescending. It is the case, though, that people who see that article and many other similar ones, especially since they contain opinions of scientists, may agree with these opinions, or at least get confused, what to do, whom to believe.
I read quite a few of those articles, and I ended up commenting after one like this, since all of these articles contained the same common errors or at least gaps of thought.
Those who warn us about the dangers of Covid-19, they emphasize that it’s not the death rate which is alarming and the most dangerous, but the very fast rate with which the virus spreads and, as a result, the hospitals get overwhelmed. Hence I do not understand why this article (and many others here) focus on comparing the death rate of Covid-19 with, say, flu.
As for the claimed incorrect calculation of the death rates: It seems the main argument is that due to a low level of testing, the death rate is found to be too high. But for calculating the death rate of flu, can’t you make the same argument: there is a lower level of testing, since many people have mild symptoms hence those people are not tested for the flu virus.
Finally, I do not understand why Ioannidis’ article gets quoted so much. It’s not a peer reviewed, scientific article. It’s an opinion which contains criticism of some of the assertions regarding Covid-19. In particular, it contains an assumption (not the description of solid research) about how the death rate of Covid-19 may be miscalculated, using the example of a small Italian town where every single person was tested and then it assumes that whatever relationships among the numbers was found may be extrapolated to be valid the whole region where the town is.
Criticism, assumptions are fine. This is what scientists do before they obtain solid scientific results. But suggesting policy decisions based on those is at least irresponsible. Especially, since the facts are there for all to see: hospitals do get overwhelmed and they have to make wartime decisions about which patients get treatment and which don’t.
LikeLike
I add that there certainly is misrepresentation of facts in the media, even when they try to be helpful. For example, we hear about this “exponential increase of infections or deaths due to corona”. Well, those are easy to check. I have looked at the infection and death numbers in Italy in the two week period of March 20-April 5. Both rates are basically linear for 10 days (the death rate maybe a bit faster than linear for 5 days), and less than linear in the last 5 days of the period.
I am not saying, linear is a comfy rate of increase. Just ask the Italian docs and their patients. But hyping about an exponential increase is way off, and it’s simple misinformation.
Similar remark applies to the US numbers. There is no exponential increase in the last, say, 2 weeks. It’s faster than linear, but nowhere near exponential.
Clearly, even linear increase can overwhelm hospitals in many places, and this is the only thing that ultimately matters. Then why report about fictional math? That kind of reporting fuels criticism, which is not needed. People are confused enough.
LikeLike
Explain more, Máté. The common mantra seems to be that each person will infect on average two more (or have they revised that down?). That’s sounds like exponential to me: 1×2, 2×2, 2x2x2, 2x2x2x2,… (I don’t remember what keys to punch to get exponents.) That’s a pretty darn dramatic looking curve until we get everyone to stay in their homes (and infect their immediate families for awhile). As to balance between job loss and illness and potential severe illness if not death, they still need a whole lot more information about how the coronavirus acts before decisions about how and when to ease up. We are watching what happens in Japan and South Korea. They have had some setbacks, but we certainly should be able to apply what they learn.
LikeLike
I understand the theory. But I look at the WHO numbers. Linear. for Italy When you see that the number of new cases is steady, that’s when you have linear increase. Here are the Italian numbers of daily new cases, starting March 21 through April 5
5986 6557 5560 4789 5249 5210 6153 5959 5974 5217 4050 4053 4782 4668 4585 4805
When they say “Yeah, but if they tested more, they would see exponential”. Well, that’s when assumptions and speculations enter. In the US, we see huge numbers, and they are terrifying: for example, one in every 3 new cases occur in the US. But is the increase exponential? For that to have, you’d need to have that the ratio of the daily new cases and the total number of cases is constant. But these ratios are steadily decreasing. Here are these ratios for the last 10 days. They are steadily decreasing instead of staying constant
0.187 0.147 0.160 0.148 0.140 0.132 0.133 0.122 0.086 0.088 0.087 0.078
LikeLike
I understand the theory. But I look at the WHO numbers. Linear. for Italy When you see that the number of new cases is steady, that’s when you have linear increase. Here are the Italian numbers of daily new cases, starting March 21 through April 5
5986 6557 5560 4789 5249 5210 6153 5959 5974 5217 4050 4053 4782 4668 4585 4805
When they say “Yeah, but if they tested more, they would see exponential”. Well, that’s when assumptions and speculations enter. In the US, we see huge numbers, and they are terrifying: for example, one in every 3 new cases occur in the US. But is the increase exponential? For that to have, you’d need to have that the ratio of the daily new cases and the total number of cases is constant. But these ratios are steadily decreasing. Here are these ratios for the last 10 days. They are steadily decreasing instead of staying constant
0.187 0.147 0.160 0.148 0.140 0.132 0.133 0.122 0.086 0.088 0.087 0.078
LikeLike
I know you understand the theory, much better than I do. I was looking for an expert translation, which you have given. Thanks.
LikeLike
In math, btw, we use ^ to denote exponentiation. So, for example, 2^3=2x2x2.
Anyhow, the experts (and they really do have high credentials, as far as I can tell) who criticize the lockdown, and say it’s not warranted, they also use speculations. They say “if they tested more, and blahblahblah, the death rate would be muuuuuch smaller”, and they even give estimates which end up like 10 or even 100-fold smaller than the flu death rate. Then they ask, “if we do not lock down during a flu season, why lock down now?”. And then people run around, repeating these “arguments” against lockdowns.
But these experts, besides giving only speculations on the “true” death rates, again and again are ignoring the main point: it’s not the number of deaths that matter (I mean, for the argument supporting the lockdown) but that hospitals get overwhelmed and they have to make wartime decisions, not to mention the deaths of doctors and healthcare workers. No, the experts go back and repeat endlessly “the real death rates do not warrant lockdown”.
Of course, the lockdown has terrible consequences, and we are finding it out as it ended after 70+ days in Wuhan. And in the US already millions lost their jobs (and they are not from the 1%), which will have not only mental but possibly deadly consequences in the increased number of suicides and riots. And then we have the impact on the elections (did you see what happened in Wisconsin?).
Actually, I think the economic impacts are also important even from a “progressive” point of view. It’s not the big multinational companies which fold during the crisis but the small businesses. McDonalds will be there to serve you their burgers at Xmas but the local Vietnamese or Italian restaurants may not be.
No, the decisions to be made do not belong to science, imo. The situation is too complicated, too “human” to have an equation that would give you the answer about what to do.
LikeLike
“In math, btw, we use ^ to denote exponentiation. So, for example, 2^3=2x2x2.”
I knew that! I was so rapped up in trying to remember what combo of keys would give me the form we used in school…
You are right that the decision is too complex to be left to “science” alone. Informed decisions require a more nuanced examination than “science” can provide. I think we have made that argument over and over again in our discussion of educational policy. Unfortunately, Trump is incapable of nuanced decision making.
LikeLike
I am not sure, it’s instructive to quote scientists in trying trying to form a convincing opinion about what to do. We saw that scientists do not have a single theory or method to apply here. Not only science cannot make very good guesses here, but also the decisions to be made cannot be analyzed by science: on the one hand, hospitals get overwhelmed and they have to deal with wartime conditions, on the other hand, millions lose their jobs as the result of the lockdown (is it now, like the unfathomable 17 million?). How does one strike an appropriate balance between these two conflicting problems?
LikeLike
Where are you getting your information.? Gates sounds like a modern day Dr. Mengele.
LikeLike
Based on that story, he really does appear monsterous, doesn’t he?
LikeLike
This could be helpful backstory?
LikeLike
Helpful in giving nightmares, yes!
LikeLike
The factories already exist, but the vaccine for COVID-19 doesn’t exist. No need to build more factories. Does Bill Gates even know how the country/world produces enough flu vaccine every year before the flu season hits?
The same factories will be used to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine WHEN it is ready and properly approved.
“All commercially available flu vaccines in the United States are made by private sector manufacturers. Different manufacturers use different production technologies, but all flu vaccines meet FDA safety and effectiveness requirements. Different vaccines have different indications. See Influenza Vaccines — United States, 2019-2020 Influenza Season for specific indications.”
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/how-fluvaccine-made.htm
“Flu vaccine is produced by private manufacturers, so supply depends on manufacturers. For the 2019-2020 season, manufacturers have projected they will provide as many as 162 to 169 million doses of influenza vaccine for the U.S. market.”
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-supply-distribution.htm
LikeLike
How long are you willing to wait once they have a vaccine? More factories may not be the right strategy, but we will need to ramp up production significantly not only here but around the world. There are countries that may rely on us for the vaccine. I’m sure china is already planning for that eventuality.
LikeLike
On November 20, 2012, Novartis received FDA approval for the first cell-culture vaccine. In a 2007 report, the global capacity of approximately 826 million seasonal influenza vaccine doses (inactivated and live) was double the production of 413 million doses.
Most of the vaccines sold in the U.S. market are produced by four large pharmaceutical companies: Aventis Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Wyeth. Two of these companies— Merck and Wyeth—are U.S.-based; the others are based in Europe.
Flu vaccine lots that have been released by FDA and are available for distribution by the manufacturers.
There seems to be no way to tell how many doses are in a Lot. “Vaccine lots are not the same. The sizes of vaccine lots might vary from several hundred thousand doses to several million,”
https://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/detection/immunization_misconceptions/en/index3.html
Click the next link to see the 9 companies listed and the total number of Lots Released by the FDA.
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/lot-release/influenza-vaccine-2019-2020-season
“While many pharmaceuticals are manufactured with relatively standardized chemical engineering processes, vaccine manufacturing is less standardized and less predictable. It often involves the complex transformation of live biologic organisms into pure, active, safe, and stable immunization components. Highly sterile, temperature-controlled environments are needed at each manufacturing step, and many vaccines must be maintained within a narrow temperature range during storage and delivery—referred to as the cold chain. Vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are subject to high standards of safety and quality assurance, including rigorous and pervasive review procedures in which each individual batch of vaccine is licensed—a procedure not required for pharmaceuticals (Hay and Zammit, 2002).
“In addition, once in production, each batch must be tested and approved prior to release. Vaccines require both a product license application (PLA) and an establishment license application (ELA), while new pharmaceutical products (“new chemical entities” or NCEs) require only the former. The ELA certifies that the facilities, equipment, and personnel involved in the manufacturing process meet FDA standards and Current Good Manufacturing Practices. Furthermore, to obtain a facility license for a vaccine, a company must first create full production capacity for that vaccine (see the discussion below) (Hay and Zammit, 2002).”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK221811/
What I just learned about the production of vaccines is that it is a complex process and Bill Gates is not an expert. Throwing his money at something does not automatically fix the problem. All we have to do is look at how Bill Gates flooding the U.S. public education system with his money caused a lot of damage.
However, if Bill Gates could change his stripes (not likely) and he DONATED the money to these private sector companies that already produce vaccines to increase product and then left it at that with no strings attached, that would probably work. But Bill Gates has a long history of attaching strings to his money and those strings often become tainted causing more problems that did not exist before Bill Gates injected his money into something like improving public education.
Bill Gates cannot be trusted.
LikeLike
“if Bill Gates could change his stripes (not likely) and he DONATED the money to these private sector companies …”
I totally agree with your assessment. My concern is in how fast we can roll out a large scale vaccination program and how the decisions are made as to who has priority.
LikeLike
cx: China
LikeLike
If you saw my answer to your previous comment, you will notice that China was not mentioned as a producer of global vaccines. China might have its own vaccine companies, but they probably only produce enough products for China’s 1.4 billion people.
LikeLike
According to the video posted by PrayThroughHistory, Gates may already have a vaccine in the works for Covid 19.
LikeLike
The keyword in your comment is “may,” and even if it was accurate, BG’s people might not come up with an acceptable vaccine before the companies that do this all the time have one approved and moving into production.
LikeLike
Lloyd,
Bear in mind that I had a motive in lavishly complimenting Gates in this post.
I hope he will see that he gets better publicity (which seems to be important to him) by sinking his money into public health, where he might do some good, than by continuing to muck around in education, where his bad ideas get lots of negative reaction.
LikeLike
And excellent motive if it works.
LikeLike
Of course, if he reads this, you have told him. 🙂
LikeLike
I wonder if Bill will volunteer to “Beta test” it.
LikeLike
You tell us to think that gates is philanthropist who really wants to save people? I think he was the one who was funding to create vaccines to control population. The wicked will save us now ?
LikeLike