Bill Gates urges creation of $1 billion per year GERM team to deal with next pandemic

[midian182]

What just happened? Former Microsoft boss Bill Gates has some strong views on the pandemic and how it was handled. He believes the world got lucky with Covid-19 and that the virus could help us prepare for future pandemics, though it will cost around $1 billion per year.

Gates made his comments at the TIME 100 Summit this week (via Insider). The billionaire recommended the creation of a Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization (GERM) team of 3,000 infectious disease experts, managed by the World Health Organization, to help countries deal with outbreaks.

Extolling the benefits of the GERM team, Gates said, "You can't do much if you don't act quickly. Pandemics are a global problem, and if one country doesn't do its part in practicing to detect and contain, then that's a problem for all the other countries." He added that the team would have to take on responsibility for "a dozen or so countries" with limited capabilities.

The team size and its required resources mean it would cost around $1 billion per year to support, but Gates says the pandemic has cost the economy over $14 trillion, so the benefits far outweigh the costs. He notes that the world was lucky the Covid death rate was just 0.2%, warning that a future pandemic could be much more deadly.

Gates also addressed how the pandemic has been handled in the US, where more than one million people have died from the virus, more than any other country by far; only Brazil has had a higher mortality rate than the United States' 303 people per 100,000. He said if the US had scaled up its ability to perform diagnostics and enforce quarantines, the country's death rate could have been as low as places like Taiwan (3,373) or Australia (8,919).

Gates criticized the US government back in 2020 over its Coronavirus strategy, saying it did not act fast enough to prevent a shutdown. He also blasted Elon Musk for the Tesla CEO's controversial views on Covid, vaccines, and the lockdowns.

Gates discusses the GERM team and other ideas in his upcoming book, "How to Prevent the Next Pandemic."

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/94886-bill-gates-urges-creation-1-billion-year-germ.html

 

[loki1944]

Next pandemic is inflation and gas prices crashing the economy.

 

[winjer]

If the US buys a hand full of missiles less, they can easily fund this 1 Billion project.

 

[DixieFatline]

All of the sudden pandemics are a thing. Incidentally, there are a lot of money to be made on vaccines etc. Wonder if someone has invested a lot of money in genetic technology and are now looking to capitalize.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Wasn't this the same guy on the Epstein flights/island?

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Politicians' response to "contain" the pandemic has cost the economy over $14 trillion.

I fixed it for you.

 

[Irata]

Well, his net worth is around $125 Billion and it seems to have gone up during the pandemic, so if he feels it‘s so important…

 

[christiangeli]

Bill gate want government to invest in his company . It is a snake

 

[Dimitriid]

That is extremely rich (pun intended) from the guy who personally enabled the pandemic from becoming even bigger by convincing people working on one of the vaccines that was ready to be freely made available to everybody to just create a patent for it instead, which naturally meant that most of the poor countries couldn't afford a rapid vaccination effort and guess where the more contagious (And henceforth more deathly overall) variants mutated first?

This MFer is an eugenicist mass murderer and he wants to lecture us about ending pandemics earlier when his actual actions caused a lot of the issues we have today?

This gaslighting attempt should be criminal coming from him.

 

[Fearghast]

All of the sudden pandemics are a thing. Incidentally, there are a lot of money to be made on vaccines etc. Wonder if someone has invested a lot of money in genetic technology and are now looking to capitalize.

TBH, it does not make push for better research less relevant.
But where it should start is education and medical care in general.

It's the same as it is in every other "industry". One thing is what we need as "society" to grow, others are things that make profit / get you to a position of power.

 

[JGert]

We got lucky from something he helped (monetarily) develop (COVID-19) in China that him and Fauci have been working on for decades to release. It didn’t get the population down like he wanted. You better guarantee that he is developing COVID-24 or something of the sort to finish what they were not able to accomplish. He is a murderer.

 

[Uncle Al]

Sadly, this existed (in a different configuration) prior to the last administration, who choose to de-fund it and break it up. That doesn't mean they could have prevented the COVID outbreak but they could/would have been on top of it from day one and very well might have prevented it from reaching pandemic levels and cause the avoidable deaths of 1million+ people had they been allowed to do their job.

Some will (as did Trump) proclaim any service not currently in use to be wasteful, but history has taught us that the benefits when activated far surpass the savings of not having it to begin with. Just imagine having no standing military and being attacked by another country. How long it takes to train a basic infantryman plus any added skills needed and God help us if we need Jet pilots or helicopter pilots where training and proficiency is measured in years, not weeks.

While not really possible in a democracy, there are certain services in the US that need to be untouchable without the full compliment of House & Senate such as Military, Post Office, Judicial, and several others. Certainly there is a mechanism to prevent political interference for the sake of politics in order to maintain a smooth running system that can work towards the benefit of the country & it's citizens and avoid all the political gamesmanship in order to try to gain favor with voters.

 

[wiyosaya]

Sadly, this existed (in a different configuration) prior to the last administration, who choose to de-fund it and break it up. That doesn't mean they could have prevented the COVID outbreak but they could/would have been on top of it from day one and very well might have prevented it from reaching pandemic levels and cause the avoidable deaths of 1million+ people had they been allowed to do their job.

This closely matches my thoughts - the CDC should be handling something like this, and frankly, I would trust them far more than a company headed by a guy who some people think (aside from the conspiracy theorists, obviously), let alone he thinks himself, that he and his money and technology can solve everything.

I was unaware that Trump disbanded it, however, that is nothing less than I would have expected from Trump given he basically shredded the prior administration's pandemic response plan.

On that note, though, there are university research teams out there that are doing similar research, and much of what went into COVID vaccine research is leading to new advancements in vaccines for other maladies. (Sorry I have no link, but if anyone wants to spend some time digging for evidence of this, my bet is that you will find it.)

Some will (as did Trump) proclaim any service not currently in use to be wasteful, but history has taught us that the benefits when activated far surpass the savings of not having it to begin with. Just imagine having no standing military and being attacked by another country. How long it takes to train a basic infantryman plus any added skills needed and God help us if we need Jet pilots or helicopter pilots where training and proficiency is measured in years, not weeks.

Well, let's hope that we never get anyone even remotely like Trump in the WH again. With the current polarization of politics in the US, though, it would not surprise me if we did. And then, those who voted for that person will be wondering "what happened to our Democracy," but by that time, it might be too late.

While not really possible in a democracy, there are certain services in the US that need to be untouchable without the full compliment of House & Senate such as Military, Post Office, Judicial, and several others. Certainly there is a mechanism to prevent political interference for the sake of politics in order to maintain a smooth running system that can work towards the benefit of the country & it's citizens and avoid all the political gamesmanship in order to try to gain favor with voters.

I agree with this. There should be something in the constitution to prevent political gamesmanship. My bet it is not there because the founders lived in a time that was much more honorable and principled than current times. It seems some - whatever their political leanings - crave power over democracy, whats best for the future of the country, and the constitution.

 

[nodfor]

Africans don't trust your benevolence. 1 Bn per year won't change that. Good luck sending in that team to take over in those countries with "limited capabilities" (= not following the official narrative)

 

[Ohnooze]

Why do people care what he says...

 

[Diwiak]

"Software developer" turned into epidemic expert.. Really? Seems more like Mengele to me which makes me sick, sorry.
Search for forbidden and consistently deleted documentary how BG's companies "helped" children in India, Africa..

 

[ruid84]

Sadly, this existed (in a different configuration) prior to the last administration, who choose to de-fund it and break it up. That doesn't mean they could have prevented the COVID outbreak but they could/would have been on top of it from day one and very well might have prevented it from reaching pandemic levels and cause the avoidable deaths of 1million+ people had they been allowed to do their job.

Some will (as did Trump) proclaim any service not currently in use to be wasteful, but history has taught us that the benefits when activated far surpass the savings of not having it to begin with. Just imagine having no standing military and being attacked by another country. How long it takes to train a basic infantryman plus any added skills needed and God help us if we need Jet pilots or helicopter pilots where training and proficiency is measured in years, not weeks.

While not really possible in a democracy, there are certain services in the US that need to be untouchable without the full compliment of House & Senate such as Military, Post Office, Judicial, and several others. Certainly there is a mechanism to prevent political interference for the sake of politics in order to maintain a smooth running system that can work towards the benefit of the country & it's citizens and avoid all the political gamesmanship in order to try to gain favor with voters.

Of course you can blame it on Trump, Orange Man Bad... but the truth is It's very difficult to fight such a virus. Vaccines obviously don't keep pace with the mutations. If you lock up the whole population, the virus will survive in animals. Even such a remote country as Australia wasn't able to avoid major outbreak (although there were able to delay it)... whereas US is far from being remote country, even if you ban travelling, there are lots of illegal border crossings... you just cannot control the virus in such circumstances.

 

[BadThad]

The pandemic cost us so much due to the all out panic created by politicians and news media. The draconian government panic measures destroyed the world economies. Now they're working on pumping up "monkey pox" as the next big thing that's going to kill us all, utterly ridiculous. Involving the corrupt WHO is a huge mistake! They are political, China-loving fools and WORTHLESS! Gates to vanish, he's an *****.

 

[p51d007]

I'll start believing Bill, when MS gets windows to where updates don't break as many things as they fix. Bill says the world is over populated. Well, he should LEAD by example...

 

[scavengerspc]

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/pdfs/1918-pandemic-webinar.pdf

"We have had 4 pandemics (minimum) since 1918", and "the probability of a pandemic with similar impact to COVID-19 is about 2% in any year, meaning that someone born in the year 2000 would have about a 38% chance of experiencing one by now. And that probability is only growing, which highlights the need to adjust perceptions of pandemic risks and expectations for preparedness."

We are in a situation where we should listen to what everyone has to say while we have time. Then we can sort them out before the fact.

The biggest problems we are likely to face are the same.
And being smart and informed will, again, not be enough for the mommy clutching basement dwellers that have no answers and nothing but complaints.

We absolutely cannot, once again, let the many losers like a lot of the posters in this thread have a say because we may not get so "lucky" the next time.
They will never have answers, and never have, but they will try to convince all the people who are actually worthy of survival that they know who does. Or doesn't. They won't.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

How to prevent the next panademic? Put a *^#^%&@ muzzle on the mouth of Bill Gates!. COVID didn't cost the economy $14 billion. Redefining what a pandemic is and brainwashing people into believing is what cost the economy $14 billions. Since Bill wants to be a broken record I have to balance it all out by repeating myself as well.

Pandemics went from requring "lots of death" which is serious, to "lots of cases"...makes ya go hmmmmm, doesnt it? See how they "moved the goalposts" so easily? Do we want to contain the spread of viruses? Hell no, we don't. Because they don't effect most of the population and this isn't Disneyland people. When people get to a certain point it's just time to go. That includes me.

This is the last psycho on planet Earth I would take any advice from!!!! Let's pitch in and buy Uncle Bill one of those clean white jackets and put him in a place where he can spill this B**@@^ to other people who might enjoy it.

"Extolling the benefits of the GERM team, Gates said, "You can't do much if you don't act quickly."

Translation? I'll take a stab at it. "When we pull the next scary virus name out of our *** you must give up all your rights and do everything we say.

Sorry, Bill, I have no fear of dying of a virus. Dying of one of your policies is what I fear the most.

Game is over Bill. You lose!!!

 

[DAOWAce]

Wtf is wrong with people in the comments here?

Why is there so much hate for Bill Gates? Because he's a billionaire and people are jealous they're not?

Society just keeps going downhill.

 

[Superconductor]

Gates is one corrupt mo fo

 

[bandit8623]

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/pdfs/1918-pandemic-webinar.pdf

"We have had 4 pandemics (minimum) since 1918", and "the probability of a pandemic with similar impact to COVID-19 is about 2% in any year, meaning that someone born in the year 2000 would have about a 38% chance of experiencing one by now. And that probability is only growing, which highlights the need to adjust perceptions of pandemic risks and expectations for preparedness."

We are in a situation where we should listen to what everyone has to say while we have time. Then we can sort them out before the fact.

The biggest problems we are likely to face are the same.
And being smart and informed will, again, not be enough for the mommy clutching basement dwellers that have no answers and nothing but complaints.

We absolutely cannot, once again, let the many losers like a lot of the posters in this thread have a say because we may not get so "lucky" the next time.
They will never have answers, and never have, but they will try to convince all the people who are actually worthy of survival that they know who does. Or doesn't. They won't.

hahaha.

but I wasnt vaccinated and was fine like my entire family. covid was the easiest cold ive ever had. you are more of the same fear mongering bs

 

[Duke9192]

This closely matches my thoughts - the CDC should be handling something like this, and frankly, I would trust them far more than a company headed by a guy who some people think (aside from the conspiracy theorists, obviously), let alone he thinks himself, that he and his money and technology can solve everything.

I was unaware that Trump disbanded it, however, that is nothing less than I would have expected from Trump given he basically shredded the prior administration's pandemic response plan.

On that note, though, there are university research teams out there that are doing similar research, and much of what went into COVID vaccine research is leading to new advancements in vaccines for other maladies. (Sorry I have no link, but if anyone wants to spend some time digging for evidence of this, my bet is that you will find it.)

Well, let's hope that we never get anyone even remotely like Trump in the WH again. With the current polarization of politics in the US, though, it would not surprise me if we did. And then, those who voted for that person will be wondering "what happened to our Democracy," but by that time, it might be too late.

I agree with this. There should be something in the constitution to prevent political gamesmanship. My bet it is not there because the founders lived in a time that was much more honorable and principled than current times. It seems some - whatever their political leanings - crave power over democracy, whats best for the future of the country, and the constitution.

After what you voted for to replace him, you have no right to critique President Trump. If you can't honestly interpret the results of the past year and a half of 180 degrees opposite Trump as a complete failure, your sense of reason and logic is Fubar........... Sir...