OPINION:
Bill Gates, the billionaire who founded Microsoft and, along with his wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, just called for a complete and utter shutdown and quarantining of the entire American nation, saying the spottiness of some states doing it and some states not has put all in coronavirus jeopardy.
This — from the guy who’s poised to make some cool millions in the market chaos of recent weeks.
This — from the guy who practically controls policy at the World Health Organization.
“Despite urging from public health experts,” Gates wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece, “some states and counties haven’t shut down completely. In some states, beaches are still open; in others, restaurants still serve sit-down meals. This is a recipe for disaster. Because people can travel freely across state lines, so can the virus. The country’s leaders need to be clear: Shutdown anywhere means shutdown everywhere. Until the case numbers start to go down across America — which could take 10 weeks or more — no one can continue business as usual or relax the shutdown.”
He then added that the impacts of the new coronavirus could linger another 18 months or so, until a vaccine was developed. Question: So, too, his proposed shutdown?
How nice for the nice billionaire with the multimillion-dollar mansion. Or two.
But for the peons of America, work isn’t an option. It’s food. It’s survival. And getting a handout from the government, while necessary in times of crises, doesn’t make up for a bankrupted business.
The fate of a hard-earned dream shouldn’t rest with a globalist billionaire who’s warning of dire coronavirus consequences to come — all the while making hands-over-fist coronavirus money, all the while holding top dog status in one of the very agencies tasked with sounding alarms on global health crises.
It’s a conflict of interest. At the least, it perceives that way.
“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust disclosed a large investment in The Mexico Fund, a closed-end fund that focuses investments in that country,” Barron’s just reported. “The fund has withered in the face of the market disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.”
The Mexico Fund’s New York Stock Exchange shares fell by 42% in recent weeks; Gates’ trust just bought a 5% stake, to become the fourth-largest investor in the fund. What a buy. Some might say, what a steal.
That’s fine; that’s the capitalistic way: Buy low, sell high, profit, profit, profit in the meanwhile.
Even philanthropists can be market-savvy.
At the same time, though, Gates is one of the largest funders of the World Health Organization, one of the forefront agencies to warn, advise and counsel governments of the globe on matters pertinent to epidemics and pandemics. On matters pertinent to the WHO-declared pandemic.
But WHO didn’t always see the coronavirus as a pandemic.
As a matter of fact, WHO didn’t announce the coronavirus as a pandemic until the very day after Gates — who had wished for some time that WHO would declare the coronavirus a pandemic — well, until the very day after Gates made a very large donation to a cause that benefits WHO.
Take a look at this timeline.
On March 10, Business Insider wrote: “Bill Gates has been sounding the alarm on the COVID-19 coronavirus, calling it a ’pandemic,’ though the World Health Organization has yet to give it that distinction.”
That was simply an aside to the larger Business Insider article point — which was to announce that “The Gates Foundation, Wellcome and Mastercard are committing $125 million in funding to companies developing treatments for the novel coronavirus” and that “the funding would be used for a COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator” to help speed along coronavirus treatments to the infected.
The Gates Foundation, meanwhile, specified in its own online post that Gates’ donated portion of the $125 million would be $50 million.
The Gates Foundation also posted this: “The COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator will work with the World Health Organization, government and private sector funders and organizations, as well as the global regulatory and policy-setting institutions.”
The same WHO and global regulatory and policy-setting institutes that Gates himself heavily, heftily funds.
In a 2017 piece titled, “Meet the world’s most powerful doctor: Bill Gates,” Politico wrote: “Some billionaires are satisfied with buying themselves an island. Bill Gates got a United Nations health agency in Geneva. Over the past decade, the world’s richest man has become the World Health Organization’s second-biggest donor, second only to the United States. … This largesse gives him outsized influence over its agenda. … The result, say his critics, is that Gates’ priorities have become the WHO’s.”
Have they? Well, let’s see.
Back to the timeline.
On March 11, one day after Business Insider reported how Gates had been pushing for a WHO declaration of pandemic on the coronavirus — one day after Gates announced the infusion of millions of dollars into a WHO-partnered venture called COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, that dangled the prospect of putting more regulatory powers into the hands of the global elitists — one day after that, WHO’s director-general made an interesting announcement.
On March 11, at a press conference on the coronavirus, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this: “We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.”
Coincidence?
Perhaps.
But there’s a lot of money and power and influence to be made with this coincidence. And as Gates’ quick jump to buy up the bottom-dollar Mexico Trust shows, he’s a guy who’s not at all averse to taking coronavirus lemons and making coronavirus lemonade for himself and his partners. But if perception counts, Gates should pick a side in this coronavirus crisis: Either heal or profit.
Don’t do both.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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