Tag: Bill Gates

More than 40% of Republicans in a new poll say they think Bill Gates wants to use COVID-19 vaccines to implant location-tracking microchips in recipients

Forty-four percent of Republican respondents in a new survey by Yahoo News and YouGov said they thought Bill Gates wanted to use COVID-19 vaccinations to implant location-tracking microchips into people, a baseless conspiracy theory that has gained traction among fringe groups and conservative pundits.

The survey also found that 26% of Republican respondents said they did not believe the false narrative, while 31% remained undecided on the topic. Half of the people surveyed who said Fox News was their main source of TV news also believed the idea.

The poll also found that 19% of Democratic respondents, 24% of independents, and 15% of people who said MSNBC was their main source of TV news also believed the myth. Continue reading.

Trump administration orders halt to ‘first of its kind’ COVID-19 testing at home project backed by Bill Gates

AlterNet logoThe Trump administration has ordered an “innovative” and “first of its kind” at home coronavirus testing program that has the support of Bill Gates and other public health experts to cease, and it’s unclear why.

The program, as The New York Times and NPR affiliate KUOW report, is based in Seattle, Washington, and allowed residents to easily test for coronavirus. One of the program’s benefits is 43 percent of its more than 12,000 participants so far were asymptomatic. To date the program has identified dozens of previously-undetected COVID-19 cases.

The Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN), operated by researchers from the Seattle Flu Study and Public Health – Seattle & King County, and had an “in-person technical adviser” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was authorized by the State of Washington. Continue reading.

Bill Gates, in rebuke of Trump, calls WHO funding cut during pandemic ‘as dangerous as it sounds’

Washington Post logoMicrosoft co-founder Bill Gates criticized President Trump’s decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization as “dangerous,” saying the payments should continue particularly during the global coronavirus pandemic.

“Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” Gates tweeted early Wednesday. “Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.”

The United States, the organization’s largest donor, has committed to provide the WHO with $893 million during its current two-year funding period, a State Department spokesperson told The Washington Post. Continue reading.