Bill Gates on COVID: Most US Tests Are Garbage
by John Lawrence, August 10, 2020
I have reported on this blog that a very inexpensive, highly reliable and accurate COBID test with quick turnaround results has been available for at least 4 months. On March 24 Lancaster University announced the development of this test. That was over 4 months ago. Why has our government failed to act on this?The question is why hasn't the Defense Production Act been put into effect to ramp up production? The government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have spent billions building factories to produce vaccines many of which may not even be proven to be safe and reliable just on the hope that when some vaccine is proven safe and effective, that vaccine will be already vialed up and ready to be distributed. But the cheap and effective COBID test kit, where is it? The government and the experts completely dropped the ball, and that is the difference between the US and other countries that have managed the pandemic quite successfully. It hasn't helped either that President Trump has totally denigrated testing.
In an interview on Wired, Bill Gates said:
Wired: But people aren’t getting their tests back quickly enough.
Gates: Well, that’s just stupidity. The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight.
Wired: Why don’t we just do that?
Gates: Because the federal government sets that reimbursement system. When we tell them to change it they say, “As far as we can tell, we’re just doing a great job, it’s amazing!” Here we are, this is August. We are the only country in the world where we waste the most money on tests. Fix the reimbursement. Set up the CDC website. But I have been on that kick, and people are tired of listening to me.
I wrote previously:
Brunel University London, together with Lancaster University and the University of Surrey have joined forces with GB Electronics (UK) Ltd, Inovo Robotics and Unique Secure to develop an inexpensive, rapid, diagnostic test kit that can inform people if they have COVID-19 in under 30 minutes and make it widely available.
The new partnership deal will bring together industry and academic experts in the fields of electronic and software engineering, diagnostics, virology, robotics and artificial intelligence to fast track the development of a new COVID-19 testing kit.
Yesterday, August 9, on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd asked Peter Navarro repeatedly about testing. This was his response: "We're issuing grants to make sure that we get point-of-care virus testing. This to me is going to be the game changer, where right now we've got two types, right? We've got a lab test that takes a number of days, which is not optimal. It's highly accurate. We've got the ID NOW of Abbott, which takes 15-20 minutes. [implication: not accurate] We're rapidly extending that reach. What we'd love to do is have a point-of-care kind of like a pregnancy test but the same idea where you can do it at your home."
So why hasn't the Defense Production Act been used to ramp up production of this test which was developed over 4 months ago? They totally dropped the ball, and the result is that the US is in deep doo doo to quote a previous US President. Peter Navarro is finally on the right track. This test module capable of providing unlimited tests for approximately $5 per test developed by 3 universities in the UK would cost about $100, and it could be in every home for that price. People could test every day, multiple times a day if needed. The US has totally screwed up! Now finally after 4 months Peter Navarro who is in charge of the Defense Production Act mentions in passing that we have a rapid cheap point-of-care test kit? This is absurd. Meanwhile, the US is languishing with a death count from COBID that will exceed all the American lives lost in World War II before it's over. Already 3 times as many lives have been lost as American lives lost in the Vietnam war.