Do you think if Bill Gates was a Trump fan and always praised his decisions that he would have became a far right target? Or much like Dr Faucci did he become a villain when he questioned the king?
It’s quite questionable to wonder why someone has donated so much of his money to helping others in impoverished countries. I bet he’s just counting on them paying him back with interest. It’s like my Dad always said, never trust a man who spends billions to eradicate polio, malaria, or AIDS. You have to wonder why they want to do that.
So he was the only person doing this in the entire world? And all these countries were forced to listen to him? I must have missed where these countries said “well we don’t want to shutdown because we don’t think it’s necessary but Bill Gates said countries should.”
God damn Bill Gates has way more power than I realized. I don’t even remember when he made our medium sized Kansas county stay at home but I wish he hadn’t. I wasn’t old or in poor health and I had to workout in the back yard.
Fuck you Bill Gates and your control over the planets decisions!
So wait a minute, Gates controls WHO and was calling for shutdowns but the WHO called Sweden–who didn’t shut down–a model for battling the coronavirus per the NY Post article?
Lol. I saw that and would’ve posted the link, but since I already knew what the usual suspects would say…complete with the requisite statistics and graphs…
I wondered about that as well. Seemed like an interesting link.
I was also long under the impression that Sweden was also under Gates control so I’m learning a lot. Maybe Gates only ordered certain countries he controlled to shut down and not all the ones he controls is the only thing I can figure out.
No, but what difference does that make in this discussion? I’m not preaching American far-right orthodoxy. Trump is a piece of shit too.
No but he’s one of the largest donors to the WHO and has a say in their policy-making, as seen with the shutdowns. Is that really so hard to understand that I have to say it over and over?
Many weeks after other places shut down the WHO realized that the Swedish approach actually worked well and spared the country from a lot of the consequences of the shutdown.
Which consequences? They’re economy is predicted to drop more than their “lockdown” Nordic neighbors, coupled with 4,4k dead and counting, ten times the combined number for Norway, Denmark and Finland.
The WHO can’t mandate shutdowns. Is that really so hard to understand that I have to say it over and over? The US gave more money to the WHO than anyone else. Are you under the assumption that the US forced countries to shutdown?
I was not aware of that, do you have a reference for that?
When this all started I read an article where one of the public health experts in Sweden was explaining their rationale, he was saying that keeping people locked up at home and destroying the economy would have other negative effects on health, like increased depression, drug abuse, domestic violence, malnutrition due to lack of funds, etc. Your comment is the first I hear about their economy being in worse shape than their locked down neighbors, and the WHO has said that Sweden’s approach seems to have worked well so something here doesn’t add up.
No, but they can recommend shutdowns and as you see most countries will follow their advice.
Maybe the countries made their own decisions based on the global pandemic? The WHO was hardly the only people recommending shutdowns. Many leaders were as well. Many health professionals. All across the world. Correlation does not equal causation.
Countries can do whatever they please. That’s why some didn’t shutdown. That’s why some shutdown at different times. That’s why some opened at different times.
The WHO can recommend that countries dance around in shit it doesn’t mean they have to follow the recommendation. This is really not as complicated as you’re making it. If you want to be mad for shutdowns at least be mad at the right people. The people with the power to shutdown countries and not the health professionals who can only just say we should.
The numbers in those charts don’t really show a stark difference. Also Denmark’s population is half of Sweden’s, so the total numbers of deaths don’t compare one to one.
You also have to look at the future outlook for the economy, damage has been done already but depending on how things are handled from this point forward it can either start to rebound or continue on the path to a complete disaster. I’m not expert on economics and I haven’t closely studied the situation in Sweden, but from what I understand they are in a better position to get back on track than other countries that had severe shutdown measures.
I don’t think it was without reason that the WHO changed their opinion and endorsed Sweden’s policies.
Yeah, the politicians are to blame as well. You just want to go on and on about Bill Gates, so that’s where it leads.
Exactly. That’s why those four thousand extra deaths were for nothing.
Actually no. Their damage to the economy is on track to be even greater than the initial projections. For example, as I understand, their neighbors have decided to keep the borders with Sweden closed as the pandemic in Sweden is not under control.
Quite the opposite. While European countries that instituted hard lockdowns are in many cases back to normal, Sweden is still is business-wise limbo. Cafes and restaurants are not the entire economy. That may be anecdotal evidence from my dealings with business partners from various European countries, including Sweden.
You have to wait and see the long term numbers, for all I know it could turn out that Sweden was wrong but remember that the original strategy here (“flatten the curve”) was about delaying infection to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, not totally prevent infections because that appeared to be impossible. Sweden’s hospitals weren’t overwhelmed, and they say they are close to having developed herd immunity which will prevent a potential second wave. Places that shut down might have to shut down again, and the total rate of deaths could well be the same in the end.
Again, we will see how it goes, in Sweden and elsewhere. What has happened so far economically is only the beginning. Over here they are talking about cutting all sorts of government services and raising taxes. Where it ends up is yet to be seen.
Of course there is a lot more to it than that. One major issue here is that schools and daycares are closed, and summer camps may or may not open at all and will have limited spaces to enforce social distancing. This means that a lot of people with kids who could still be working right now are not able to because there is nobody to take care of their kids. In Sweden they kept schools open. It’s hard to gauge how much of a difference this will make because there are no statistics available at the moment, but it’s a significant issue.
In Toronto they are saying they will have to cut a lot of things if the federal government cant give them more money, but more federal spending is going to mean more taxes or more debt. They say they might have to cut the number of buses and trains to half the previous number, plus limit how many people on board for social distancing. This in a city where it’s not easy to get around by car due to constant traffic jams everywhere. How are people supposed to get to work?
A spokesperson for Sweden’s public health agency says that herd immunity was never a deliberate part of the plan – either way, a recent study showed that only 7.3 per cent of people in Stockholm, the epicentre of the epidemic in Sweden, had developed antibodies indicating that they had already been infected with Covid-19. In London, where a lockdown was in effect, that figure is 17 per cent according to one study.
I believe you’ve brought him up numerous times. I bring him up largely in response to you talking about him because you clearly don’t understand what he (or the WHO) can do. Bill Gates is a rich man with an opinion. The US hasn’t followed numerous things he’s wanted to do. Because they don’t have to do anything he says.
Saying Bill Gates is the reason places shut down is idiotic. Places shut down because they saw a global pandemic and they thought it was the best thing to do. Not all of them did, not all of them did at the same time, not all of them did in the same manner.
There’s no point in going back and forth about this. What Sweden did is obviously controversial, some people support it while others think it was a bad idea. Here’s a recent article that includes opinions from both sides of the debate:
But seeing as you are pro-shutdown, seeing as in some places like Canada over 80% of deaths were in nursing homes and most people who get infected are either asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms, why do you feel that shutting down nearly everything was necessary? If appropriate measures were taken to prevent outbreaks in nursing homes and the sick and elderly were encouraged to stay home then things could have continued more or less as usual with much less deaths.
I had the virus, I was tested because I work in a nursing home. I never had any symptoms, but a quarter of the residents at my work died. There were no measures in place to prevent an outbreak in the home, and only after several residents were sick with an “unidentified respiratory illness” and one employee tested positive was anything done at all. Yet in Canada, nobody under 20 years old has died from the virus and kids are much less likely to get infected at all, but schools are shut down indefinitely and kids can’t even use a play structure at the park. Do you not see how the response did not make sense?
He was saying that it should be declared a pandemic and for things to be shut down the day before the WHO declared a pandemic and recommended the shutdowns. To deny that he had any influence in that is what is idiotic. Politicians thought that shutting down was the best thing to do because in any places they follow what the WHO tells them, whether right or wrong, because they are the global health authority.
You’re really already wanting to Monday morning quarterback this? I suppose that was just a matter of time. I suppose we could look at your own words for insight into how little we knew about the virus at the time.
