Bill Gates Acknowledges COVID-19 Vaccines Not Stopping Viral Transmission: Fundamental Premises Questioned?

Recently a nonprofit group called Policy Exchange facilitated a filmed interaction with Jeremy Hunt and Bill Gates. A British politician, Hunt has served the UK’s government as chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee since 2020. Of course, Gates, one of the world’s wealthiest people, has become a high profile figure in the world of philanthropy and vaccine development. During the recent exchange the Microsoft founder made some eyebrow raising statements about the current COVID-19 vaccines on the market. Specifically in addition to several views on topics from the pandemic to climate change, Gates declared “We didn’t have vaccines that block transmission” which seemingly refutes previous comments by the billionaire. Gates got even more frank declaring “We got vaccines that help you with your health, but they only slightly reduce transmission.”

TrialSite provides a link to the interview. A number of websites such as Rebel News also featured the interview Bill Gates admits COVID-19 vaccines don’t stop viral transmission – Rebel News suggesting that one of the world’s preeminent public health investors and prominent supporters of the current COVID-19 vaccine strategy admits to the failure of the vaccine industry. 

No vaccine is full proof, and the COVID-19 vaccines are no exception. Still early-stage life science-based products, the vaccines will become better over time.  A historical milestone during the COVID-19 pandemic, powerful new vaccines were produced in less than a year—simply unprecedented.  Moreover, significant evidence supports part of the government narrative—that the vaccines have prevented millions of more severe COVID-19 cases while preventing death so TrialSite doesn’t agree that Gates’ comments are an admission of outright failure.

However, where the Gates comments raise controversy is when considering the underlying premise behind mass vaccination, including mandates for adults in businesses with over 100 employees or aggressive pushes by the federal government in the United States to get all children vaccinated.

From this point of view children are “reservoirs” for the pathogen and that vaccination could stop the spread of the disease via this reservoir.  But numerous studies now indicate durability challenges including waning effectiveness and considerable viral transmission—from vaccinated persons.  

The vaccine products represent historically notable progress in vaccination development with the first product releases comparable to the version 1.0 analogy. While on the one hand they represent an amazing set of accomplishments, on the other hand it might be too early to declare they are designed to end the pandemic.

TrialSite, an apolitical place, shares the video interview so the community members can determine for themselves the Gates comments and associated implications.  TrialSite has discussed that the vaccines can help save lives, particularly the elderly and people with higher risk profiles.  As Bill Gates declared in the interaction with Hunt the vaccines are on the one hand providing protection against more serious forms of COVID-19. However, on the other hand accumulating data points indicate higher risks for some serious adverse events than are disclosed.   Importantly as well due to durability challenges viral transmission increases in the vaccinated just months after the administration of the second dose.

Gates Departs from Pack?

A fundamental premise for the mass vaccination programs have been that the vaccines would stop viral transmission. However, that isn’t the case as study after study reveals durability challenges with the vaccines.  These are new products which will improve over time but it could very well be that no vaccine can simply stop COVID-19.

Is the recent admission by Gates as to limitations of the vaccines indicative of changes to come in his approach to funding novel vaccines?  

What is the Policy Exchange?

The London-based Policy Exchange is according to Wikipedia a British center-right-wing think tank which can inform government policy in the UK. The group was formed in 2002 as an independent, non-partisan educational charity with a mission to promote new policy ideas for improved outcomes—e.g. better public services while bolstering society.