“We Hadn’t Really Thought Through the Economic Impacts” ~ Melinda Gates

It just slipped Marie Antoinette's mind the rest of us aren't sitting on top of $100 billion

Have spent $500 million to lock us down

In a wide-ranging interview in the New York Times, Melinda Gates made the following remarkable statement: “What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought through the economic impacts.” A cynic might observe that one is disinclined to think much about matters than do not affect one personally.

It’s a maddening statement, to be sure, as if “economics” is somehow a peripheral concern to the rest of human life and public health. The larger context of the interview reveals the statement to be even more confused. She is somehow under the impression that it is the pandemic and not the lockdowns that are the cause of the economic devastation that includes perhaps 30% of restaurants going under, among many other terrible effects.

She doesn’t say that outright but, like many articles in the mainstream press over this year, she very carefully crafts her words to avoid the crucial subject of lockdowns as the primary cause of economic disaster. It’s possible that she actually believes this virus is what tanked the world economy on its own but that is a completely unsustainable proposition.

Further, her comments provide a perfect illustration of the core problem all along: most of the people who have been advocating lockdowns in fact have no actual experience in managing pandemics. To many of these, Covid-19 became their new playground to try out an unprecedented experiment in social and economic management: shutting down travel, businesses, schools, churches, and issuing stay-at-home orders that smack of totalitarian impositions.

Here is what she says:

You can project out and think about what a pandemic might be like or look like, but until you live through it, it’s pretty hard to know what the reality will be like. So I think we predicted quite well that, depending on what the disease was, it could spread very, very, very quickly. The spread did not surprise us.

What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought through the economic impacts. What happens when you have a pandemic that’s running rampant in populations all over the world? The fact that we would all be home, and working from home if we were lucky enough to do that. That was a piece that I think we hadn’t really prepared for.

There are plenty of specialists who have lived through pandemics in the past and managed them by maintaining essential social and economic functioning. A major case in point is Donald A. Henderson, who as head of the World Health Organization is given primary credit for the eradication of smallpox. He wrote as follows in 2006:

Experience has shown that communities faced with epidemics or other adverse events respond best and with the least anxiety when the normal social functioning of the community is least disrupted. Strong political and public health leadership to provide reassurance and to ensure that needed medical care services are provided are critical elements. If either is seen to be less than optimal, a manageable epidemic could move toward catastrophe.

Melinda together with her husband Bill have been the major funding source for pro-lockdown efforts around the world, giving $500M since the pandemic began, but also funding a huge range of academic departments, labs, and media venues for many years, during which time they have both sounded the alarm in every possible interview about the coming pathogen. Their favored policy has been lockdown, as if to confuse a biological virus with a computer virus that merely needs to be blocked from hitting the hard drive.

We can look at how this disease traveled around the world and see that the countries who locked down first, they’re doing better. Many African countries saw it coming and locked it down early. Their replication rate just never got as high as many other countries. And that is a good thing.

While it is true that Africa is an odd outlier, the claim that this is due entirely to early lockdowns has no support. Those who have looked at the anomaly in Africa point to the very young population (just 3% are over 65), cross immunities with other coronaviruses as the main reason for the low death rate, and stronger overall immunities. Indeed, the demographics alone could account for nearly the whole of the mortality difference with Europe and the U.S. In addition, Melinda says here what Bill has said for years: the only solution to a virus is to suppress it and develop a vaccine – the previously untested experiment that has brought poverty, death, and despair to the entire world. Africa in particular was devastated by lockdowns.

It’s still a good thing that she is opening up to the New York Times so that we can gain better perspective on her outlook. There will be a reckoning in the coming year concerning why and how all this happened to us. There will be no chance of suppressing the reality of what has happened. Indeed the center-left press is already starting to admit what AIER has been saying since March 2020.

Consider this roundup from just the last several days:

What Has Lockdown Done to Us? By Drew Holden (New York Times):

Some researchers worry that the social isolation has inflicted damage to mental health that will outlast even the worst of the pandemic. We may not have a full accounting of the consequences for years to come….There will be significant long term consequences from school closures as well. About half of the country’s school districts held remote classes, either exclusively or partially, at the start of the year. This approach has meaningfully reduced educational quality, particularly for children of color.

These losses don’t even take into account the direct effects of the lockdowns on the economy. Small businesses have closed their doors at very high rates as the American economy sputtered in response to stay-at-home orders. One study estimates that 60 percent of the millions of jobs lost between January and April were a result of the lockdowns, not the virus itself. The economic uncertainty caused by unemployment comes with its own health risks….

These tragedies have become an ambient backdrop to everyday life: present but forgotten, real but ignored. Perhaps America has simply gotten comfortable ignoring the quiet suffering of others.

The Problem With Underestimating How Much People Want to Be Together” by Julia Marcus (The Atlantic)

When a public-health approach isn’t producing the desired outcome, it’s time to try something different. Instead of yelling even louder about Christmas than about Thanksgiving, government officials, health professionals, and ordinary Americans alike might try this: Stop all the chastising. Remember that the public is fraying. And consider the possibility that when huge numbers of people indicate through their actions that seeing loved ones in person is nonnegotiable, they need practical ways to reduce risk that go beyond “Just say no.”

Covid used as pretext to curtail civil rights around the world, finds report” (The Guardian)

The state of civil liberties around the world is bleak, according to a new study which found that 87% of the global population were living in nations deemed “closed”, “repressed” or “obstructed”…..A number of governments have used the pandemic as an excuse to curtail rights such as free speech, peaceful assembly and freedom of association, according to Civicus Monitor, an alliance of civil society groups which assessed 196 countries.

The parental burnout crisis has reached a tipping point by Anna North (Vox)

Lack of child care is likely a big reason more than 850,000 women dropped out of the workforce in September — more than in any other month on record except for this April, Covert reports. Overall, moms have borne a bigger share of the pandemic parenting burden than dads, with 80 percent of mothers of kids under 12 saying they are responsible for the majority of distance learning in their homes in one April survey. And single moms have been the hardest-hit of all: The share of unpartnered moms in the workforce dropped from 76.1 percent in September 2019 to 67.4 percent in September 2020, a significantly larger drop than those seen among partnered parents or single dads, according to a Pew analysis.

Many aren’t buying public officials’ ‘stay-at-home’ message. Experts say there’s a better way” (Los Angeles Times)

Health officials are up against a fatigued public, as well as a number of people who don’t believe in the danger of the virus, (Dr. Monica) Gandhi said. But she is also part of a growing number of experts who think there’s a better way to engage those who do want to take the pandemic seriously — by taking a lesson from the public health strategy known as harm reduction.

Finally, it’s tremendously gratifying that the last column of the mighty genius Walter Williams specifically named the Great Barrington Declaration as the answer:

What about the benefits and costs of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic? Much of the medical profession and politicians say that lockdowns, social distancing, and mask-wearing are the solutions. CDC data on death rates show if one is under 35, the chances of dying from COVID-19 is much lower than that of being in a bicycle accident. Should we lock down bicycles? Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, biostatistician, and epidemiologist, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University and an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician and epidemiologist were the initiators of the Great Barrington Declaration. More than 50,000 scientists and doctors, as well as more than 682,000 ordinary people, have signed the Great Barrington Declaration opposing a second COVID-19 lockdown because they see it doing much more harm than good.

The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration never had any doubt that eventually most everyone would come to see that the traditional principles of public health prevail over the previously untested and now failed policy of lockdowns. They spoke out when they did as a means of forcing the issue, and their courage will long echo in the annals of history. Now if we could only get Melinda Gates to see it.

Source: AIER

16 Comments
  1. Skagit MG says

    If you are 35 or younger and die from a bicycle accident it only pertains to you. If you are 35 or under and contract Corona Virus and unknowingly spread it around you may have been the agent of death for many people, including your grandmother. This is one of the problems with the nonscientific public who are up in arms over their “rights”. You really don’t have a right to expose someone for your selfish reasons. You need to learn to be concerned with someone other than yourself. You have the “right” to be responsible. With freedom comes responsibility. Here is some data for you:

    “Earlier this month (SEPTEMBER 2020), Amnesty International released an analysis estimating at least 7,000 health workers have died around the world after contracting COVID-19, with more than 1,300 of them in Mexico. Amnesty International recorded nearly 1,000 deaths of healthcare workers in the U.S.”

    That figure has gone up since then. “In a report issued this past week, National Nurses United (NNU) put the number of deaths among healthcare workers at more than 1,700.” Since they were working may we presume they were of working age and not over 65?

  2. cechas vodobenikov says

    “of all peoples in an advanced stage of economic civilization amerikans are least accessible to long views always and everywhere in a hurry to get rich they give no thought to remote consequences–they see only present advantages…amerikans do not remember, they do not feel: amerikans live in a materialist dream”. Moisede Ostrogorski

  3. kierandsouza says

    what’s so philanthropic about spending $500 million for lock downs when the vaccines you have invested in will yield you in $trillions

  4. plamenpetkov says

    blah blah blah.

    people STILL cannot get it through their thick skulls (including the author) that this is ALL BY DESIGN.

    stupid idiotic assholes, cant even grasp the fundamentals yet.

    1. glimmer says

      true, even the most diehard anti maskers or whatever say ‘the virus is real but…’ so the foundation of their arguments are built upon sand. i wonder if the garbage ‘people’ (i say ‘people’ cause these individuals must have no souls, just a brain locked in a skull lusting for power & wealth) i wonder if they were surprised how well this scam has worked & how quickly.

  5. Charles Homer says

    As shown in this article, there is one low cost, readily available and thoroughly tested drug that has been proven to reduce the mortality and incidence rates of COVID-19 that is being ignored by the mainstream media and most of the world’s governments:

    https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/12/is-ivermectin-unsexy-miracle-solution.html

    This generic drug won’t generate the type of attention-grabbing headlines that the current “sexy” vaccines have received, particularly now that governments are looking for willing subjects to be the first test subjects for vaccination.

  6. ke4ram says

    We know the virus is a fake. Then everything about it from drugs to vaccines is also fake. So the question is… “What’s it all about?”

    It’s the damn Global warming crap on steroids. Eliminate production, businesses, jobs,,, is to eliminate CO2. They want to bring CO2 down to zero which means they want to destroy all life. Without CO2 there will be no plant life. No plant life means no animal life.

    They conned the idiot mink owners into killing 17 million minks. Now their after cattle.

    If you want to live,,, if you want your offspring to live,,, you better wake up. As can be readily seen they are serious about this. This is literally a life and death war.

    1. SuzanneK says

      Deadly prions shed from “infected” minks will be the next scamdemic to sweep the world……

      These Globalist Monsters are not going to stop with CovAids-19.

  7. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

    SO FAR REMOVED from the lives of ordinary people they might as well be inbred royalty. Goddamnit I hate their fucking guts.

    1. glimmer says

      that’s what they are aiming for, royalty. they definitely want to be rid of White people so they can have a compliant slave population. when i watch the hearings before legislatures concerning the obscene voting fraud that took place, almost every last one is White & the one’s who bullied them & screamed in their ears because ‘covid’ distancing or whatever made up garbage were not.
      when you see anti-lockdown protests, almost all White. these small business owners mostly White too. whenever you see a group of these individuals it is the same & that’s remarkable cause if you took a walk in a mall in America you would think White’s were 1% of the population.

  8. Mark says

    I find it kind of liberating, really; for example, once I thought I lived in a free society, one in which my freedoms were mine to keep, and that my opinion and input mattered as a citizen. I felt like I was a member of a community, and I cared about my community.

    But now the mask is off, as it were, ha, ha. The lockdowns and mandatory masking under the claim that they are scientifically validated as a protection against airborne respiratory viruses has shown my leaders for the liars and charlatans they are, yes – but it has shown me who my community is, as well, and it is basically non-existent. Every issue of the local paper contains letters to the editor from people from my former community, howling for the provincial medical officer to impose even stricter curtailments, even more severe punishments for those who won’t wear a mask. If a $200.00 fine doesn’t get their attention, make it $1000.00. Get tough, for fuck’s sake. Letters suggesting that anyone who won’t wear a mask should be denied health care if they get sick. Letters suggesting that anyone who won’t wear a mask should not be allowed to get a vaccine shot. You get the drift, I’m sure – ‘anti-maskers’, the lepers of the modern pandemic society, invariably portrayed as ignorant, loudmouthed louts, should die. They should all disappear, so the land can resound with the joy of the mask disciples.

    So I don’t really have a community any more. If there’s a house fire, and the home of someone in what used to be my community burns to the ground, and they are left without a pot and a handful of beans in winter, what’s that to me? If someone gets knocked down in the street, why should I help them up? They’re nothing to me – they’re part of the community that called for me to be denied health care if I got sick, although I paid into national health care all my 39 years of military service to the country. Let someone from their community help them up.

    It’s every man for himself.

  9. gentrieplemmons says

    Nice article. In fact Mr Bill And Melinda Gates is one of the good people which have foundation and always helping many people in this world including Indonesia as aigameresearch. Thanks to Me. Bill Gates & Melinda Gates

    1. glimmer says

      a really ugly man too, just like big Mike.

  10. thomas malthaus says

    I’ve no doubt they considered the deleterious economic impact. Bill was solely obsessed with human abatement.

    While I’m not much for affixing labels labels such as Bolshevik or Fascist, his actions via his financial advances paints a disturbing picture.

    1. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

      I know what to do with their spoiled monarchist asses.

      BEAT THEM TO DEATH WITH BASEBALL BATS.

      DISTRIBUTE EVERY PENNY THEY OWN TO THE PEOPLE.

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