The United Nations is renewing a push to build the infrastructure needed to develop a vaccine within 100 days of the next pandemic, an effort backed by Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation.
In a policy brief published earlier this month, the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health said the goal is equity-driven — to help low-income countries access vaccines as quickly as wealthier countries during a global health emergency.
According to the brief, models suggest that rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine within 100 days of sequencing the virus would have saved about 8 million lives by the end of 2021, and up to $14 trillion in healthcare costs and lost productivity.
Based on those projections, improving vaccine equity in future pandemics will require the global health community to prioritize regional manufacturing capacity alongside “resilient, pre-established preparedness frameworks.”
One such framework, according to the report, is “The 100 Days Mission” — a Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) initiative that aims to “potentially contain outbreaks before they spiral out of control.”
An ‘absolute nightmare waiting to happen’
The 100 Days Mission can contribute to “a global system that can respond quickly to future health emergencies while directing protection to populations with the greatest need,” according to the U.N. brief.
But for Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Children’s Health Defense (CHD), prioritizing speed over safety leaves insufficient time to evaluate the efficacy or potential risks of vaccines. Hooker called the plan an “absolute nightmare waiting to happen.”
He added:
“No intervention that is untested should be rolled out within 100 days of a ‘pandemic threat’ … Even if the platform to roll out a shot was adequately tested, there would be no clues as to how the vaccine antigen … would react physiologically, no time for animal studies and no evaluation of any long-term sequelae to vaccination.
“Not only would this produce a vaccine that doesn’t work, but also it could cause way more damage than the infection that inspired the intervention.”
Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, told The Defender the U.N. plan lists lockdowns as a key component of containing a future outbreak.
“This plan imagines 100 days of lockdown before the release of the shot, if that is even possible. Compliance with this will be very low,” Tucker said.
According to Tucker, there’s no record of any pandemic having been stopped by vaccines, because vaccines “cannot stay ahead of mutations.” He said the shots “will drive the mutations and thereby deprecate the shot formula.”
“This plan exists on paper and has nothing to do with reality. If attempted, it could conceivably do more harm than the previous attempt during COVID,” Tucker said.
