Why Melinda Gates Spends Time ‘Letting My Heart Break’
One of the richest women in the world devoted decades to preparing for a pandemic. As the valedictorian of her Dallas high school, Melinda Gates delivered a graduation speech that included a quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived,” she told her classmates, “this [...]
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]]>Why Melinda Gates Spends Time ‘Letting My Heart Break’
One of the richest women in the world devoted decades to preparing for a pandemic.
As the valedictorian of her Dallas high school, Melinda Gates delivered a graduation speech that included a quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson. “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived,” she told her classmates, “this is to have succeeded.”
Decades later and billions of dollars wealthier, Ms. Gates says the quote is still ringing in her ears. “That’s been my definition of success since high school,” she said. “So if I have an extra dollar, or a thousand dollars, or a million dollars, or in my case, which is absurd, a billion dollars to plow back into making the world better for other people, that’s what I’m going to do.”
As the wife of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, Ms. Gates now has the capital, clout and connections to have an impact however she pleases. She is one of the richest people in the world, a leading voice in global health and an advocate for women’s economic empowerment. As a face of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, she is also a lightning rod for critics who say billionaires have too much sway over public policy, as well as for conspiracy theorists who harbor darker fantasies.
The Gateses have been sounding the alarm about infectious diseases — and the need to fund vaccination efforts — since the late 1990s. That was when, during travels in Africa and India, the extreme poverty they saw prompted them to reflect on how they might use their wealth to make a difference.
“We just kept saying: ‘What’s going on here? Why isn’t the infrastructure here for roads? Why aren’t we seeing more people who are doing well economically? What’s happened?’” Ms. Gates said. “We started to think about what philanthropy’s role might be and realized that the best place to intervene, if you want somebody to live a full and productive life, was to start with health.”
Since then, the Gates Foundation has given away more than $55 billion, much of it directed at efforts to eradicate disease in the developing world. It has helped to all but wipe out polio, and has poured money into programs aimed at ensuring that poor countries have easy access to vaccines.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the foundation turned its attention to the vast and complex project of developing vaccines for the new virus, and ensuring that they could be widely distributed. So far, the foundation has contributed nearly $500 million to coronavirus response efforts. Earlier investments by the foundation are paying off as well — one of the drugmakers it previously funded, BioNTech, has developed a successful Covid-19 vaccine with Pfizer.
Ms. Gates is more optimistic today than she was a couple months ago. Vaccines that appear to be safe and effective are beginning to be deployed. Treatments for the virus have improved. And President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has made beating back the pandemic his top priority.
“The Biden administration will re-enter the global stage and be a participant in making sure the whole world gets vaccines,” Ms. Gates said. She added that the virus team assembled by Mr. Biden was “a very strong, eminent group who are wise and thoughtful and very reasonable.”
Yet Ms. Gates was realistic about the challenges ahead. Vaccine hesitancy is on the rise, disinformation is running rampant on social media, many Americans still refuse to wear masks, and cases are surging again.
“We still have a stretch of very dark months ahead of us,” she said.
This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.
You and Bill have been warning about the risk of pandemics for a long time. How has the last year diverged from your expectations?
Melinda Gates: You can project out and think about what a pandemic might be like or look like, but until you live through it, it’s pretty hard to know what the reality will be like. So I think we predicted quite well that, depending on what the disease was, it could spread very, very, very quickly. The spread did not surprise us.
What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought through the economic impacts. What happens when you have a pandemic that’s running rampant in populations all over the world? The fact that we would all be home, and working from home if we were lucky enough to do that. That was a piece that I think we hadn’t really prepared for.
What do you think should have been done earlier at the start of the pandemic?
Melinda Gates: We can look at how this disease traveled around the world and see that the countries who locked down first, they’re doing better. Many African countries saw it coming and locked it down early. Their replication rate just never got as high as many other countries. And that is a good thing.
We should have said sooner that if you’re going to go out, wear a mask. I mean, the fact we’re even still debating that in the United States makes zero sense. Most people get in a car today and know that to save their own life, they ought to wear a seatbelt. Most people would agree that having drunken drivers on the road is a bad thing, not only individually but for us as a society, because it causes more deaths.
Well, masks are just the right thing to do right now. It is insane that we’re at this point in this pandemic, in the United States, and we’re still debating whether people should wear a mask when they go in a store to buy their groceries.
What do you believe are going to be the most serious challenges to conducting an effective and comprehensive vaccination campaign in this country and around the world?
Melinda Gates: We do know how to get the vaccine out, even in very remote circumstances. Some of the vaccines will be much harder than others and require very substantial cold chains, so those will be hard to get out around the globe. But there are vaccines coming right behind those, so I’m quite optimistic.
The disinformation has been incredibly harsh, and it affects people’s lives. But I’m also hopeful that as the vaccine comes out and people see that it’s safe and efficacious, they will start to take it so that they can go out and return to normal.
To what do you attribute the rise in vaccine hesitancy? Is it as simple as disinformation?
Melinda Gates: I think, quite honestly, the advent of social media. If you’re a conspiracy theorist and you get connected to somebody else who maybe has heard of the autism problem that didn’t really exist, those things start to connect, and then those conspiracies start to replicate. We’re at a point of a lot of distrust in the country and all over the world. We know people are more polarized. Disinformation is just too easy to spread, and that’s going to cost people their lives.
To what do you attribute the rise in vaccine hesitancy? Is it as simple as disinformation?
Melinda Gates: I think, quite honestly, the advent of social media. If you’re a conspiracy theorist and you get connected to somebody else who maybe has heard of the autism problem that didn’t really exist, those things start to connect, and then those conspiracies start to replicate. We’re at a point of a lot of distrust in the country and all over the world. We know people are more polarized. Disinformation is just too easy to spread, and that’s going to cost people their lives.
Say I start to believe PizzaGate and I start clicking all the theories of PizzaGate. What I’m going to get served up on my social media channel is lots more things about conspiracy theories. And if I don’t have anybody pushing back on that, and I’m going down that wormhole, I’m going to start to believe more and more and more disinformation. That’s just not good for society. Between social media and people’s own anxiety and the polarized nature of our country, all these pieces have combined to make sort of a perfect storm around vaccine hesitancy.
Are there some people who will never get vaccinated, never wear a mask? Yes. We’re already seeing that in places in the country. But I think the more important question is: Will there be a broad set of people that will take this vaccine? And I think the answer to that will be yes.
You and Bill have been subject of conspiracy theories, too. Why do you think they’ve targeted you specifically?
Melinda Gates: I don’t know. I just think that fear is there, and so people are looking to point to somebody or some thing or some institution. And then once it lands on that person or institution, you get sort of a pile-on effect because of social media, and it’s deeply, deeply concerning for society. Our democracy depends on facts, and we depend on having real facts out there to keep ourselves safe and healthy.
Do you believe that the Trump administration’s politicization of the vaccine development process is contributing to that hesitancy?
Melinda Gates: Absolutely. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was set up to give scientific information and guidance to health commissioners in every region of the United States. That agency needs to be left to do its job in terms of real scientific fact. And same thing with the Food and Drug Administration. The F.D.A. is our gold standard. It’s how we know our vaccines are safe and efficacious. So they need to be independent organizations and left as independent so that we can trust them. Unfortunately, the opposite of that has happened during this current administration.
Do you believe the United States will be able to recover its leadership position in public health?
Melinda Gates: People are looking to the U.S. and saying: “What’s happened? What’s going on?” But I do believe our F.D.A. will hold. I do believe our C.D.C. will hold. I do believe the institutions we have will hold over the long term. I’ve traveled to many different countries and seen where they don’t have good governance or good institutions, or they don’t have a free press. We are lucky to have those things in the United States. And, yes, they have been eroded to some extent, some of them, and, yes, our position in global leadership has people scratching their heads. Can it be built back? Yes. Definitely.
Do you believe it’s appropriate for drug makers to profit from the sale of vaccines in the midst of a pandemic?
Melinda Gates: I think they should make a small profit, because we want them to stay in business. And at the end of the day, they are beholden to their shareholders. The question is how much profit. And I think during a pandemic like this, it should only be slightly above the marginal cost of the vaccine.
Do you accept the line of criticism that says big philanthropy has too much power right now, that individuals, not governments, are making decisions that shape educational policy and public policy?
Melinda Gates: I think that’s a critique that is well worth listening to and looking at. In our philanthropic work, there isn’t a single thing that we don’t work on in partnership with governments. Because at the end of the day, it is governments that scale things up and that can help the most people. There is a healthy ecosystem that needs to exist between government, philanthropy, the private sector and civil society. And when you get that ecosystem working at its best, no one party in that ecosystem has too much power.
You know, if Bill and I had had more decision-making authority in education, maybe we would’ve gotten farther in the United States. But we haven’t. Some of the things that we piloted or tried got rejected, or didn’t work, and I think there’s a very healthy ecosystem of parents and teachers’ unions and mayors and city councils that make those education decisions. I wish the U.S. school system was better for all kids.
Do you believe the tax code should be changed in ways that address some of the enormous economic disparities in this country?
Melinda Gates: Bill and I completely agree if you’re wealthy in this country, you benefited from the system, you benefited from the amazing infrastructure of the United States, and so you have an obligation to give back. And we don’t have a tax policy that is appropriately taxing the wealthiest. I’m not an expert on tax policy, but I will say this: A lot of wealthy people are making a lot off of their capital gains, versus their ordinary income. And I think that’s one place we ought to look at tax policy.
How do you reconcile the enormous privilege that you have with the acute suffering that so many people are experiencing right now?
Melinda Gates: It’s something I’ve pondered a lot. There’s no explanation how you get to be in this situation of privilege. There’s just none. But I spend a lot of my waking hours, when we’re not in a pandemic, traveling and meeting other people and doing what I call letting my heart break. I’ve worked in Mother Teresa’s home for the dying. I’ve slept on people’s farms in Africa. I do meditation every morning, and I’ve had days of tears thinking about people I know who’ve lost a loved one. It’s going to those places where your heart really hurts for everybody, not just your own sense of loss.
And so I cry a lot, and then I come back and I say, “How do I take what that person shared with me and what I learned, and how do I plow that back into the work to try and make the world better, or to convince a global leader that they ought to give more money to malaria, or care about people getting a vaccine on the other side of the world, or care about a child not getting a proper education in certain cities in the United States?” I just try to constantly remember that it’s a privilege.
Originally published on Nytimes.com
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German Biopharma CureVac Sees Surge in Shares Since Friday’s IPO
CureVac, one of the contenders in the COVID-19 vaccine race, only sees a surge in shares since debuting in Wall Street Friday. German biopharmaceutical firm CureVac, one of the coronavirus vaccine developers, saw a continued boost in shares. After its first day in trading on Friday, CureVac saw tripling in Wall Street amid the intense [...]
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]]>German Biopharma CureVac Sees Surge in Shares Since Friday’s IPO
CureVac, one of the contenders in the COVID-19 vaccine race, only sees a surge in shares since debuting in Wall Street Friday.
German biopharmaceutical firm CureVac, one of the coronavirus vaccine developers, saw a continued boost in shares. After its first day in trading on Friday, CureVac saw tripling in Wall Street amid the intense path among drugmakers to produce a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. Its $213.3 IPO price is $16 per share, which ended the day with almost $56.
Skyrocketing Shares
On Monday, the German company saw a 40 percent boost in shares. This comes after its chief exec, Franz-Werner Haas, told a local financial news site about hopes of having a vaccine okayed by regulators by early next year. Since its Friday debut, the increase is 431 percent. Just three days after launching in Wall Street, it even soared to a record high of $85 per share.
Other notable companies developing their own coronavirus vaccines include American pharmaceuticals Moderna and Pfizer.
Race Towards a Safe Vaccine
Per a regulatory filing, the biopharma company said they will utilize the new funds from its public trading for R&D. CureVac said it will also finance their potential COVID-19 vaccine in clinical development through the completion of its Phase 3 trial, per Business Insider. In June, CureVac received regulatory approval from Germany and Belgium to proceed with clinical trials of one of its vaccines.
The race for a successful coronavirus vaccine is heating up in labs around the world — and on Wall Street. Germany's CureVac, a biotech company with the backing of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, more than tripled in its first day of trading Friday. https://t.co/m9QcfyDnpc
— CNN International (@cnni) August 14, 2020
In the regulatory filing, the company wrote: “We are a global clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of transformative medicines based on [mRNA] that has the potential to improve the lives of people. Our vision is to revolutionize medicine and open new avenues for developing therapies by enabling the body to make its own drugs.”
Company Backing
Also, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the company with $40 million. Moreover, co-founder of German tech giant SAP, billionaire Dietmar Hopp, has large stakes in CureVac, owning over half of the company. Other stakeholders include the government of Germany and British pharmaceutical firm GSK.
In early last month, Elon Musk of Tesla wrote in a tweet that Tesla, “as a side project, is building RNA microfactories for CureVac,” which could be brought to other companies as well. He said that synthetic RNA has a potential, making “the solution to many diseases a software problem.”
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Biotech Firm’s CEO Mentions Need to Raise Bar in Immunization Even Post-Approval
CEO of one of the companies giving efforts to find vaccine admits that a less-than-ideal vaccine can’t back immunity During an exclusive interview with CNN Business, the chief executive officer of California-based synthetic biology firm Berkeley Lights had cautioned that the road to vaccine development is not an easy one. Immunity Building Eric Hobbs, top [...]
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]]>Biotech Firm’s CEO Mentions Need to Raise Bar in Immunization Even Post-Approval
CEO of one of the companies giving efforts to find vaccine admits that a less-than-ideal vaccine can’t back immunity
During an exclusive interview with CNN Business, the chief executive officer of California-based synthetic biology firm Berkeley Lights had cautioned that the road to vaccine development is not an easy one.
Immunity Building
Eric Hobbs, top head of Berkeley Lights, told CNN that the probable success of any drug is about four percent. His company, a biotechnology institution specializing in cell processing, is also working with other organizations to come up with a vaccine. Among those groups they partnered with include biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the US Defense Department.
Although the three-year CEO of Berkeley Lights hopes for a vaccine to be developed soon, he also worries about its effectiveness. “If a vaccine is not good enough, you can’t build up immunity. I think we’re getting to a point where there’s a good set of clinical candidates,” Hobbs said.
Hard Process
He also assumed there should be at least 20-25 viable candidates for the vaccine in order to be sure that one would truly be effective. He noted how many are finally coming to terms how difficult a process of coming up with a vaccine is. “All this money is being dumped in but there is a low chance of success and high costs,” the chief exec noted.
He also mentioned to CNN how important it is to raise the bar for the vaccines. He said: “But the world cannot take its foot off the gas pedal until we have an approval—and even then not until levels of immunity are high enough to ensure that the world’s population is safe.”
Going Public
On a lighter note, Hobbs confessed to CNN how he had over a hundred investors he talked to via online meeting. He said he had to take 180 Zoom calls in a matter of three days. This, in an effort to bring the company public, which happened last month. On their first day of trading publicly, the biotech institution saw a doubling on their shares. Its stock is currently up about 165 percent from its offering price, per the CNN.
180 Zoom Meetings in 3 days? Might be a world record!
Congratulations on the IPO @Eric_D_Hobbs and @berkeley_lights!https://t.co/kq3MQp8oKd
— Zoom (@Zoom) August 13, 2020
More investors are buying shares from firms that attempt to make treatment for the novel coronavirus. Hobbs also remarked that the technology developed by Berkeley Lights is used in treatments for cancers and inflammatory and infectious diseases.
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Previous Vaccines Could Lower Risk of Catching Covid-19
As COVID-19 remains a mystery to science, researchers have found that the virus affects each person differently including vaccines. Moreover, the different COVID-19 effects could be related to a person’s vaccine history. The Journey to a COVID-19 Vaccine Experts from the Mayo Clinic suggested that previous vaccines could reduce the risk of getting COVID-19. If [...]
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]]>Previous Vaccines Could Lower Risk of Catching Covid-19
As COVID-19 remains a mystery to science, researchers have found that the virus affects each person differently including vaccines. Moreover, the different COVID-19 effects could be related to a person’s vaccine history.
The Journey to a COVID-19 Vaccine
Experts from the Mayo Clinic suggested that previous vaccines could reduce the risk of getting COVID-19. If you’ve gotten dosed for pneumonia, hepatitis, and others, you lower the risk of getting COVID-19. Dr. Andrew Badley repeated this finding to CNN on Monday.
Dr. Badley is an infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic. Moreover, Dr. Badley says immune training could result in a lower risk. Like a muscle that gets stronger through exercise, the immune system also works better through vaccines.
No evidence exists to confirm this theory. However, some studies have suggested it could be possible.
"When we looked in the setting of COVID disease, we found that people who had prior vaccinations with a variety of vaccines — for pneumococcus, influenza, hepatitis and others — appeared to have a lower risk of getting COVID disease …" Via @CNN https://t.co/LzJRd1GdzP
— Mayo Clinic (@MayoClinic) August 12, 2020
More COVID-19 Global Cases
This news comes as the virus has infected 20 million people worldwide. Moreover, Johns Hopkins says the global death toll could reach 750,000.
In the US, Johns Hopkins says that COVID-19 has infected over 5 million people, with a death toll of 164,000. However, the average daily new cases dropped to over 54,000 in August. In July, the country recorded an average of over 65,000.
The average death toll in the US has remained at 1,000 over the past two weeks.
Keeping Safe from COVID-19
Another study said that COVID-19 would have infected 80% of Americans if states did not order social distancing. While the world waits for a vaccine, people should wear masks and stay away from each other to avoid the virus.
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US Biotech Firm Moderna Shares Good Early Results for COVID-19 Vaccine
There is a glimmer of hope in the search for a COVID-19 vaccine. After Phase 1, Moderna’s trial vaccine scored promising results. It triggered immune responses in all the volunteers injected with it. These results give scientists hope in creating drugs to combat the pandemic. As the US becomes the COVID epicenter, these results provide [...]
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]]>US Biotech Firm Moderna Shares Good Early Results for COVID-19 Vaccine
There is a glimmer of hope in the search for a COVID-19 vaccine. After Phase 1, Moderna’s trial vaccine scored promising results. It triggered immune responses in all the volunteers injected with it. These results give scientists hope in creating drugs to combat the pandemic. As the US becomes the COVID epicenter, these results provide solace to its citizens. Currently, the US has over 3 million cases, with 136,000 deaths. Florida, Texas, and California also account for one-fifth of the global numbers.
How Does Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine Work?
CNN reports that Moderna’s vaccine triggered immune responses from all subjects. The subjects had side effects like headaches, chills, and pains. After this success, Moderna published the data in the New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday. Moderna is a US-based biotech company. CNN adds that they are also the first company to publish results in a scientific journal. Moderna has teamed up with the National Institutes of Health for the tests.
A Covid-19 vaccine developed by the biotechnology company Moderna in partnership with the National Institutes of Health has been found to induce immune responses in all of the volunteers who received it in a Phase 1 study. More research is still needed. https://t.co/XqhSomM2Kl
— CNN Business (@CNNBusiness) July 15, 2020
Later in July, Moderna is set to move its vaccine trials to Phase 3. In this stage, regulators see if the drug is ready for general release. CNN also reports that if Moderna succeeds, they could give out about 500 million doses every year. They could even go up to 1 billion, starting from 2021.
Dr. Tal Zaks told CNN that these early results “are good news.” He adds that “many have been waiting for quite some time.” Dr. Zaks is the Chief Medical Officer of Moderna.
Who Participated in Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine Test?
For the study, Moderna involved 45 healthy adults, from 18 to 55 years old. Also, they must have received the vaccine candidate twice, 28 days apart. Once gathered, the volunteers went into groups. All groups received vaccine doses of 25, 100, or 250 micrograms. Vaccinations occurred between March 16 and April 14.
What Were the Effects of Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine?
All volunteers reported having side effects. However, these were only mild and went away after some time. Moderna’s data also showed the volunteers produced antibodies against the infection. These are proteins produced to fight off any infection.
The volunteers made antibodies at a similar rate to those who recovered from COVID-19 naturally. Their antibodies attached themselves to the virus. Once connected, they prevent it from attacking human cells.
While Moderna’s trial seems promising, scientists say it is too early to rejoice. More research is still needed. Creating vaccines is very difficult.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says 23 candidate vaccines are undergoing clinical trials worldwide.
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