DISINFO: Bill Gates had predicted the appearance of a virus that looked very much like coronavirus
SUMMARY
In the US, they recall the speech of Bill Gates five years ago, when he had already predicted the appearance of a virus that looked very much like coronavirus, from which “millions of people could die.” Back in October 2019 in New York, at the Center for Health Security of the University Johns Hopkins, in conjunction with the World Economic Forum and the Bill Gates Foundation, Event-201 was organised and conducted exercises to simulate an outbreak of coronavirus infection, predicting up to 65 million deaths. At the same time, they recall how in 2010 the Guardian newspaper told readers that at the initiative of the founder of Microsoft in New York, a meeting was held between the most influential people of America at that time – David Rockefeller, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Warren Buffet and of course, Bill Gates himself. They called their secret meeting “Good Club,” and the main issue discussed at that meeting was the overpopulation of the Earth.
RESPONSE
Recurring conspiracy theory about Bill Gates and his support for vaccination programmes, aiming ”to reduce the global population”. It is true that the Microsoft founder, billionaire Bill Gates, addressed the issue of the global population in a public speech. In 2010, during a TED conference, he said that the world's population, which at the time was 6.8 billion people, would reach 9 billion, but that if certain measures were taken, a 10%-15% reduction in growth could be achieved. The idea was not about reducing the population by 15%, but the growth rate. This claim has been debunked in February 2020 by Le Monde. Concerning the Event-201, held in October 2019, which is said to have predicted the appearance of a ”virus that looked very much like coronavirus”, the John Hopkins Center for Health Security, who developed the exercise simulating a pandemic, denied that this was a prediction. In a statement published on 25 January 2020, the Center said that the event really ”hosted a pandemic tabletop exercise called Event-201 with partners, the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”. ”To be clear, the Center for Health Security and partners did not make a prediction during our tabletop exercise. For the scenario, we modelled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction,” is mentioned in the statement. The meeting called ”Good Club” really took place in 2009, according to the Guardian, and meeting was convened "in response to the global economic downturn and the numerous health and environmental crises that are plaguing the globe". In the article, there is no reference to any plans to reduce the global population. More details see here.