Bill Gates Has a Message For Conspiracy Theorists

In an interview with CNN, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates responded to his prominence in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories that have spread online: CNN: There are 16,000 Facebook posts espousing conspiracy theories about you and the virus... They're liked or commented on 900,000 times. On YouTube the top 10 videos that spread lies about you had almost 5 million views. It's also pointed out that according to Zignal Labs, which is a media analysis company that tracks this, misinformation about you is the most widespread of all coronavirus falsehoods... What do you say to people who believe this stuff? Because I'm sure you're inundated... Bill Gates: The combination of having social media spreading things that are very titillating, to having this pandemic where people are uncertain and they'd prefer to have a simple explanation — it's meant that these things are really, you know, millions of messages a day. And people like myself and Dr. Fauci have become the target. Often the clever thing they do — you know, our foundation has given more money to buy vaccines to save lives than any group. So you just turn that around — you say, "Okay, we're making money, and we're trying to kill people with vaccines, or by inventing something." And at least it's true — we are associated with vaccines — but you actually have, you know, sort of flipped the connection that we have there. You know, I hope it doesn't create vaccine hesitancy. I hope this whole story of innovation that's going on, that we do get the benefit of that. It's really the only good news I'm bringing you today, is that diagnostic therapeutic and vaccine innovation, these amazing private-sector companies, without the coordination you would've liked — they are doing it... . Gates told CBS News he expects some at-home, instant coronavirus tests to be approved in the next two to four months. "These are well-meaning people," Gates told CNN of the diagnostics innovators. "This is a time when people are doing great work. "So I hope the conspiracy stuff dies down."

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