Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Brendon Trevorrow)
Fact-Checked Source:
Bill Gates, "How to respond to COVID-19"
On February 28, 2020, Co-founder and Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Bill Gates voiced his concerns over the rising threat of COVID-19, following it up with a list of steps he believes should be taken by leaders around the world to both address the current situation and better prepare the world for similar instances in the future.Fact Checking the Claims
In the interest of better understanding the context of the beliefs expressed by Bill Gates, five presented facts are analyzed to help determine the reliability of the claims made throughout the piece.
Global health experts have been saying for years that another pandemic rivalling the speed and severity of the 1918 influenza epidemic wasn’t a matter of if but when.
Having heard something akin to this in the past, I felt it relevant to determine if any health experts have commented on it. As it turns out, Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta made a similar claim as far back as November of 2018 in an article on CNN.
There are two reasons that COVID-19 is such a threat. First, it can kill healthy adults in addition to elderly people with existing health problems. The data so far suggests that the virus has a case fatality risk around 1%
This is very important information because it indicates that no demographics are immune and that the case fatality risk is relatively high compared to other viruses. According to Our World in Data, the current case fatality in the United States is hovering around 5.68%. Concerning the potential risk to the healthy adults, research out of the CDC seems to support this.
The average infected person spreads the disease to two or three others. That’s an exponential rate of increase. There is also strong evidence that it can be transmitted by people who are just mildly ill or not even showing symptoms yet.
Considering the limited amount of data present at the time this piece was written, it's important to determine if these trends discovered so early on were accurate. The CDC affirms that the virus can be transmitted by asymptomatic carriers, with a research article out of Science Magazine providing data that supports the claim that the virus spread further and faster due to the number of unconfirmed cases,
By helping countries in Africa and South Asia get ready now, we can save lives and also slow the global circulation of the virus.
As a philanthropy attempting to direct the focus of leaders in the time of a crisis, the dissemination of accurate information is essential for generating support. The United Nations Department of Global Communications corroborated this statement, relating that developing countries and/or those currently in the midst of humanitarian crises are insufficiently prepared to combat the spread of the virus.
During a pandemic, vaccines and antivirals won’t simply be sold to the highest bidder. They’ll be available and affordable for people who are at the heart of the outbreak and in greatest need. Not only is this the right thing to do, it’s also the right strategy for short-circuiting transmission and preventing future pandemics
This is significant because the philanthropy is prodding at the subject of health inequality and promoting the idea that the quick production of vaccines is necessary for preventing future pandemics. The New York Times published an article- utilizing a variety of sources from different fields- arguing this point, relating that a lack in research funding and last-minute production of vaccines is the cause behind why viruses with the potential of resulting in a pandemic pose such a risk. The current system is to fight the outbreaks as they come, without preparing for the future.
Analytic Essay
The Philanthropic Effect
During times of crisis local and federal governments often find themselves woefully unprepared to provide the support and access to resources which the people need. Thus, they rely on philanthropy from other members of the community as well as philanthropic foundations to help support them. Such a scenario has occurred time and time again in the early months of 2020, as nations around the world face a crisis unparalleled in recent history as COVID-19 shows the world how poorly prepared it was for the emergence of a new pandemic. Throughout this struggle, philanthropies such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) have pooled all their resources into supporting communities and research being conducted with the intent of creating a vaccine to the virus. The BMGF plays an important role in providing support to low-income and developing countries, with their mission statement being to combat inequality, improving world health and well being, and developing vaccines to prevent the spread of infectious diseases to the most vulnerable.The source embedded above is a response from Co-founder of the BMGF, Bill Gates, to the threat of COVID-19. As Co-founder, Gates is largely responsible for both the direction and position of the BMGF, whether directly or indirectly, on any given issue that the foundation addresses. Their outlook on the current situation is that people are needlessly suffering due to lack of farsightedness on the part of world leaders and other authority figures. Gates relates that by not recognizing the potential threat of the virus, no action was taken towards stockpiling medical necessities nor any widespread financial support of a vaccine. This issue is relevant to the BMGF because the virus will have a devastating impact on developing countries as well as other low-income communities of which their mission is to support. Depending on the outcome of this pandemic, the BMGF might find themselves with more support than ever before. As a result of being so woefully unprepared for this threat, the world will likely shift gears towards funding the scientific research in which the foundation has been backing, which includes the production of affordable vaccines for diseases not recognized as a significant threat as of yet (Gates, 2020).
The BMGF stands for the values of its founders and trustees. At the moment, the foundation is primarily focused on improving the health of people in developing countries. Their goal is to ensure that those who are most vulnerable are given access to opportunities and resources which allow them to be successful. Their intended audience isn’t solely those who their mission goals apply to, but also people with the desire to take action in their own communities; for those wishing to contact the BMGF, their homepage provides links for guidance and information.
Due to the foundation’s close relationship with scientific organizations and research funds, they find scientific data and conclusions very valuable. Gates used multiple figures and statistical values when expressing his position on the subject. Additionally, because the BMGF is such an influential backer when it comes to scientific research funding, they have the knowledge and connections from various economic, political, and scientific fields that most others lack. This has caused them to place a greater emphasis of trust on those who not only wish to receive funding for a project which aligns with their goals, but they must also be able to convince them that their knowledge and work is worth investing in.
As a result of holding such an immense presence in the world of scientific research funding and philanthropy, the BMGF has experienced little conflict with most organizations and media outlets. However, their goal-oriented decision process when it comes to deciding what research to fund has garnered criticism in a research article which analyzes the effectiveness of the BMGF in regards to improving world health (Matthews & Ho, 2008). Because the foundation works closely with their aligned values, whether or not the most relevant issues are being funded versus those which the foundation personally finds important has been a topic of discussion among economists and scientific researchers.
Ultimately, it is essential that the perspective of philanthropies such as the BMGF be understood due to the important roles they play in crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. These foundations often take the stance of a group without much financial stake in any given situation, valuing instead the health and safety of the people who experience the brunt of the crisis.