The Olympic rings are displayed at Odaiba in Tokyo. Photo: AP file
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Suga, Bill Gates agree vaccines key for Tokyo Olympics

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Of course Olympics will definitely go ahead, because it is a very important issue for Dentsu.

And serving Dentsu's profits is Japanese government's most important objective. JP government would not bat an eye if they need to levy 99% tax rate on the population as long as Dentsu can take most of that tax money.

27 ( +31 / -4 )

I guess you can include Japan among those developing countries he and his new buddy Gates talked about, because it sure seems we are behind the developed world in getting vaccines into the arms of those living in Japan.

23 ( +26 / -3 )

I wonder if anyone told Bill that the majority of Japanese are against the games? Sorry to say that although Bill's message was one of encouragement, it will be misconstrued and only embolden Suga to proceed even if the developing countries are not vaccinated. The crux of the message was to get the vaccines to developing countries.

21 ( +26 / -5 )

Does Bill Gates own shares in Dentsu?

20 ( +24 / -4 )

If Gates and Suga are even hinting that somehow Olympic athletes should have priority over non athletes for vaccination, they are both out of touch with reality and the public mood. Athletes are young and generally healthy, and should be near the last in line. (Of course Paralympians are the exception).

If the athletes cannot wait in line for their jabs, cancel the Tokyo Olympics. Period.

18 ( +21 / -3 )

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on Tuesday agreed on the need to distribute coronavirus vaccines to developing countries in order to ensure the safety of this summer's Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics,

Um, they aren't even going to have the vaccine widely distributed within Japan by July, let alone have it distributed to developing countries. So what are they talking about?

18 ( +20 / -2 )

Was thinking why is Bill Gates even part of this discussion?

Not an epidemiologist.

Not an infectious disease expert.

Not an Olympic official.

Not a Tokyo Government member.

Not a sportsperson.

Ah ha...the provider of money and resources.

17 ( +22 / -5 )

Japan is too slow to roll out the vaccines so for that reason alone they should cancel the Olympics.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

You can just picture Bill Gates in a meeting with a bunch of advisors before he made that call: " Let's just humour the old git about his pet vanity project . Japan is a lost cause, so of course Suga will prioritise anyone on the Olympic gravy train before Japan's own citizens. But we can't do anything about that, so let's just focus on getting Japan to fund vaccination programmes for developing countries."

7 ( +9 / -2 )

What Olympics? Are they still holding onto the thread of hope that they are going to go ahead? They are banking on vaccines that haven’t even been developed yet. Dreams are free!

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Suga replied that the games are a "very important issue" and would "definitely" go ahead

With vaccines not being distributed yet, neither approved?

I used to believe the Olympics could go ahead due to so much lead time to make it “covid proof”, that meaning no audience, athletes flying weeks in advance to quarantine etc...

But lets be honest, Suga only keeps saying “it will go ahead” without any taking action to move in that direction sustainably.

Olympics 2021 will be cancelled, there is no way around it unless action is taken asap and vaccines widely distributed to the japanese population.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

I'm a little unsure of what the point of this telephone conversatiion actually is.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

I hope, during the course of this conversation, Bill Gates told Suga to hurry up already with approving the vaccine. It's absurd to think that at this very minute, bureaucrats in Japan are still deliberating on it. Are they taking their time on purpose so as to create the appearance they checked everything thoroughly?

4 ( +9 / -5 )

Gates also owns a very large compound in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture where he can hide out. The fact that this conversation even took place is very scary.

4 ( +9 / -5 )

I had such high hopes, but put me in the “Enough” camp.

Cancel them. Let’s cut our losses and move on. And I hate to say that.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

When will Japan receive the first doses of contracted vaccinations? What’s the Japanese plan to get vaccines in arms? Biden is trying for 1M/day after inauguration. Can Japan do as well?

2 ( +6 / -4 )

CognacToday  07:40 pm JST

go to India and say that Gates has "saved lives" and look at their reactions

Oh stop with this anti-vaxx nonsense. The story about India was proven to be false and a lie. Spreading this nonsense is irresponsible and childish.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

I think it would be wise to prepare for the possibility that vaccines will not present a silver bullet to guarantee that 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games will procced as planned.

Multiple COVID-19 variants circulating globally could well have put paid to that.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Do they even recognize what’s going on everywhere, how the numbers explode and hospitals as well as crematoria filled up to the ceiling? They will have their personal olympics but barricaded themselves in the bunker of their elite palaces, equipped with O2-bottles, private ICU beds, ECMO and pray that every little hole is hermetically closed.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

and can escape antibodies from existing vaccines.

Dr Ding is not an MD. He was highly criticized by epidemiologists as an alarmist who uses anecdotal tales rather than data and his Twitter posts have been continuously deleted since they have been used by conspiracy nutjobs.

Got any real truth about "escaping" anitbodies?

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Gates has donated over $1.75 billion to healthcare and vaccination programs. He can save lives, but can't save the ignorant fools who don't take two minutes to research the truth, instead, they believe and pass ridiculous Internet trash talk and nonsense.

We need a vaccine against human stupidity.

1 ( +7 / -6 )

Yeah, the returns on his investments in vaccines are massive.

yes, in development and public health for the population vaccinated. That is the whole point in investing on health measures proven to be safe and effective, to have huge returns.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

I dont trust Bill Gates. He want to control.

0 ( +8 / -8 )

Beautiful!  Statue of Liberty in Odaiba . . . .

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Bill Gates is one of the very very few super-rich who actually puts his money into making the world a better place. Everything from vaccinations in poor countries to innovating technologies.

How many other super-rich are doing this? If you're gonna hate on Bill just because, there are more qualified people to hate on, like bezos with his slave labor.

-1 ( +11 / -12 )

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation makes donations. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust invests in the companies that profit from the aforementioned donations.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation makes significant donations to media organizations. (BBC, NBC, New York Times, The Guardian, National Journal, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, Le Monde, Al Jazeera, Univision, Washington Monthly, the Center for Investigative Reporting, etc., etc., etc.)

The more 'ignorant fools' look into Bill Gates activities, the better.

Bill Gates net worth in 2010: $53 billion. In 2020: $120 billion.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

Bill Gates winds conspiracy theorists up.

Puts him up in my estimation.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

bill gates is a capitalist. Look at the current results in america. I am very disappointed in him.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

I don't approve of the Olympics at the middle of the pandemic either. It's utterly unrealistic but if your countries send even a single individual to compete, then you are part to blame.

Let's hope for the best and wait and see. We all need encouragement.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

This mutation is a combo of UK and Brazilian mutations, is super spreadable and can escape antibodies from existing vaccines.

There is no variant known to escape antibodies as evidenced by a lack of clusters of secondary infections. Polyclonal antibodies are not that simple to be rendered ineffective.

Conclusion

°

I think SPIKE ONLY VACCIN is a safer solution than the ARN messenger one because we don't know what are the brain and ARN artificial messenger can do together.

Almost every single thing in your comment can be demonstrated as false, but specially your conclusion, a protein only vaccine is to be considered less safe in the case of SARS-CoV-2 because, as evidenced by research on highly pathogenic coronaviruses, any vaccine that don't have any intracellular RNA phase is more likely to produce a pathogenic reaction because of uncontrolled inflammation that damages the tissues.

The rest of your reasons are mistaken so they are not relevant to the topic.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

That's it use 3rd world countries as crash test Dummies.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Just don't forget to take the Olympics away AFTER they've given doses to developing nations, because I have no doubt that if the Olympics are canned Suga will suddenly not agree quite so much on helping others.

-2 ( +8 / -10 )

Was thinking why is Bill Gates even part of this discussion?

Like him or not, he is a generous and dedicated person and has been involved in saving lives for over 20 years.

https://www.politico.eu/article/bill-gates-who-most-powerful-doctor/

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

I think it is wonderful that Gasu is committing not just to roll out the vaccine to everyone in Japan, but also all people of the Olympic world in the next six months. Fantastic news. I have full confidence in your ability. Go Gasu!!

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Bill Gates is one of the very very few super-rich who actually puts his money into making the world a better place.

Yeah, the returns on his investments in vaccines are massive.

Many people are not convinced his motives are good.

-3 ( +8 / -11 )

"Gates has donated over $1.75 billion to healthcare and vaccination programs. He can save lives, but can't save the ignorant fools who don't take two minutes to research the truth, instead, they believe and pass ridiculous Internet trash talk and nonsense.

We need a vaccine against human stupidity."

go to India and say that Gates has "saved lives" and look at their reactions

-3 ( +6 / -9 )

Ok yes the guy is super rich and yes he is trying to save lives at what cost? Nothing that guy is worth over 53 billion if only he and the other super rich would spread their wealth in terms of putting it in cities and countries where the people can have an earn a descent living then I would say he and others are helping, right now the only thing I could think of for keeping the poor a live is to keep a steady stream of people living to keep their cash flowing in.

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

Tokyo Olympics must be canceled now.

There is now a Japan-specific super mutation spreading in Japan.

This mutation is a combo of UK and Brazilian mutations, is super spreadable and can escape antibodies from existing vaccines.

It's over for the Tokyo Olympics.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1348606324901359619?s=20

-4 ( +0 / -4 )

"Bill Gates is one of the very very few super-rich who actually puts his money into making the world a better place. Everything from vaccinations in poor countries to innovating technologies"

I think the world is a better place thanks to him like windows is a good operating system for PCs....

-7 ( +4 / -11 )

In other words, push for mass vaccination across the world or you'll lose the Olympics. But Gates' name is mud in Africa, and the continent has been spared much of the damage, probably because of the relatively young population compared to developed countries.

Because we all know that this virus overwhelmingly affects elderly people, mostly elderly people with underlying conditions.

-8 ( +9 / -17 )

Gates is playing Suga like a fiddle... but for a good cause. haha. Good on him.

-8 ( +9 / -17 )

To continue, if several African countries aren't keen on vaxing up just to keep Suga and therefore Gates happy, it's going to be a pretty lonely Games.

-8 ( +5 / -13 )

I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese populous protests this by not wearing masks. They surely have strong backbones and opinionated.

-8 ( +2 / -10 )

Definitely vaccinate the athletes before the govt. old aged dead wood.

-11 ( +3 / -14 )

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