The Show Must Go On. Event 201: The 2019 Fictional Pandemic Exercise [World Economic Forum, Gates Foundation et al.]

Wrong Kind of Green

March 19, 2020

By Cory Morningstar

Questioning the ruling class narrative should never be seen, nor framed, as reckless. It should never be subjected to shaming. Rather, it should be a prerequisite and respected as such. The imperative to always question the ruling class narrative is not the responsibility of a small handful of individuals, but the responsibility of a thinking society as a whole. A working class society. With media, global institutions, NGOs, academia, and science, all in the pocket of capital, as draconian measures set in, this prerequisite has never been more important or more urgent.

The fictional pandemic exercise titled Event 201 was a high level simulation exercise that took place on October 18, 2019, at The Pierre, a luxury hotel in Manhattan NY. High-level global participants gathered to explore ideas as to how to mitigate devastating worldwide economic and societal impacts that would result from “a severe, highly transmissible intercontinental outbreak”. [Source] The exercise was built around a fictionalized CAPS virus, a naturally occurring coronavirus (not unlike SARS or MERS) which originated in bats, but for the fictional exercise, it had emerged from pigs.

The event was held by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Event 201 was by invitation only, with media in attendance such as Bloomberg. Video and audio recording were not permitted, rather, following the event, select high-quality video and audio were made available to the press in attendance.

The sixteen high-level participants included:

Ryan Morhard, Lead, Global Health Security, International Organizations, *IGWELS, World Economic Forum, Legal Analyst, The Center for Biosecurity of UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center)

Chris Elias, President, Global Development division, Gates Foundation

Tim Evans, Former Senior Director of Health, World Bank Group

Avril Haines, Former Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency; Former Deputy National Security Advisor

Sofia Borges, Senior Vice President, UN Foundation

George Gao, Director-General, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Latoya Abbott, Risk Management and Global Senior Director, Occupational Health Services, Marriott International

Stanley Bergman, Chairman of the Board and CEO, Henry Schein, Inc. (a worldwide distributor of medical and dental supplies including vaccines, pharmaceuticals, financial services and equipment)

Stephen Redd, Deputy Director, Public Health Service and Implementation Science, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Paul Stoffels, Chief Scientific Officer, Johnson & Johnson

Jane Halton, Board member, ANZ Bank; Former Secretary of Finance and Former Secretary of Health, Australia

Matthew Harrington, Global Chief Operations Officer, Edelman (one of the largest PR/marketing consultancy firms in the world, in fees/revenue)

Chokwe Ihekweazu, Director General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control

Martin Knuchel, Head of Crisis, Emergency and Business Continuity Management, Lufthansa Group Airlines

Eduardo Martinez, President, The UPS Foundation

Hasti Taghi, Vice President and Executive Advisor, NBCUniversal Media

Lavan Thiru, Chief Representative, Monetary Authority of Singapore

 

[*IGWELS is an acronym recognized to few outside the power elite – the “Informal Gatherings of World Economic Leaders”. These are the very top-tier closed meetings “restricted to the likes of prime ministers, foreign and finance ministers and central bank governors”.][Source]

A primary purpose for the simulation was to illustrate the weakening of international alliances (and the potential of collapsing Governments) – thus, putting forward a shared fervour to increase public-private partnerships. While the high-level participants recognized the public sector as the front line of defence against pandemics, they highlighted their shared position that the resources and strength/ability to respond exist/belong to those in the private sector.

“Creating models such as Event 201 takes more than a year of planning, and an investment of “hundreds of thousands of dollars”, [Ryan Morhard, project lead for Global Health Security, World Economic Forum], but the lessons learned are invaluable.” [Source]

Janet Wu, Bloomberg

 

Thirty days after the October 18, 2019 simulation exercise, on November 17, 2019, the first documented case of the coronas virus (COVID-19) is said to have appeared. [“The first case of someone suffering from Covid-19 can be traced back to 17 November, according to media reports on unpublished Chinese government data.”] [Source: The Guardian]

Logic dictates that the simulation drill carried out on a fictitious coronavirus global pandemic, which was then declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 by the WHO, is a drill worthy of both study and analysis. Of particular interest is the discussions on how to control the information and messaging. (Such analysis must be conducted via a critical, discerning, and cynical lens.)

October 18, 2019: Johns Hopkins Center For Health Security “tweet” with World Economic Forum and Gates Health

 

The invite-only simulation exercise was held on Oct 18, 2019 from 8:45 a.m.– 12:30 p.m. It is VERY UNLIKELY that the high-level panel, having flown in from around the world, would have simply disbanded after the 3-hour exercise. It is VERY LIKELY that discussions continued from that point onward behind closed doors for the remainder of the day (if not subsequent days). As Ryan Morhard, World Economic Forum, is identified as IGWELS (the very top-tier closed meetings “restricted to the likes of prime ministers, foreign and finance ministers and central bank governors”) – this detail is worthy of exploration.

Here it is important to note that also on March 11, 2020, the World Economic Forum announced a partnership with the WHO (a UN agency) to form the COVID-19 Action Platform – a task-force comprised of over 200 corporations at launch. This is in addition to the World Economic Forum partnership with the United Nations on June 13, 2019. The corporate world is capturing our real world, in real time.

The videos which remain accessible on the website include:

Highlights Reel – Selected moments from the October 18th Event 201 Exercise (Length: ~12 minutes)[/li]

Segment 1 – Intro and Medical Countermeasures (MCM) Discussion[/li]

Segment 2 – Trade and Travel Discussion[/li]

Segment 3 – Finance Discussion[/li]

Segment 4 – Communications Discussion and Epilogue Video; Segment 5 – Hotwash and Conclusion[/li] [Website: www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201]

Bloomberg released two separate audio reports:

Bloomberg, Nov 4, 2019: Preparing For The Next Pandemic (Audio): “As the coronavirus outbreak approaches a pandemic, global leaders and health officials are scrambling to contain the fallout. That has sparked quarantines and other emergency action around the world. It’s a scenario that was planned for, in one case just months ago, at a gathering of leaders in global finance, policy and healthcare. Bloomberg’s Janet Wu was there and brings us this report.” [Running time 08:12]

https://www.bloomberg.com/…/preparing-for-the-next-pandemic…

Bloomberg, March 4, 2020: Event 201: Preparing for a Pandemic (Audio)

“Hosts June Grasso and Ed Baxter feature the best stories of the day from Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg Television, and over 120 Bloomberg News bureaus around the world on Bloomberg Radio’s Bloomberg Best. Highlights include… Janet Wu on the potential impact of the next Pandemic.”[21:33-29:33]

https://www.bloomberg.com/…/event-201-preparing-for-a-pande…

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The “COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator”, the”sister CEPI”. Gates and Mastercard’s Impact Fund charity have jointly committed $125m in seed funding.

 

“The private sector is an integral partner on the health security agenda, yet its potential has largely been untapped.”

 

— World Bank, Nov 14, 2017, What Can We Learn from Uganda on Fighting Deadly Disease Outbreaks?

Initial plans of the World Economic Forum- World Health Organization COVID-19 Action Platform include raising an  estimated $12 billion dollars in order to create and distribute a corona virus vaccine. [Source: “Business Insider’s Better Capitalism Series”] Members of the WEF-WHO taskforce include corporations Volkswagen, Bank of America, and Deloitte. To “galvanize the global community for collective action”, the taskforce will “Empower community leaders and reinforce solidarity, including by mobilizing Young Global Leaders, Global Shapers, media and civil society ambassadors”. A third approach is to “mobilize cooperation and business support for the COVID-19 response: Harness big data and artificial intelligence to mitigate impact and improve decision-making.” [Source]

“I see it as a mobilization opportunity to show the best of what’s possible of stakeholder capitalism.”

 

— March 13, 2020, World Economic Forum Managing Director, Jeremy Jurgens [People Trust Companies More than the Government to Handle a Crisis — and it Shows Just How Much Corporate America is Stepping up to Tackle the Coronavirus Pandemic, Business Insider; “This article is part of Business Insider’s ongoing series on Better Capitalism.”]

As the old adage goes, never let a good crisis go to waste. The sheer terror surrounding COVID-19 and future pandemics is being tapped and utilized by the World Economic Forum for the coming financialization of nature: “How biodiversity loss is hurting our ability to combat pandemics”. [Source] The monetization of nature, global in scale, is being marketed to the public under two sister campaigns created by the World Economic Forum, the World Wildlife Fund, and other corporate institutions including the United Nations: Voice For The Planet and the New Deal For Nature. The term “biosecurity” will be fully utilized as the means to obtain the social license that is required – by a populace paralyzed by fear. The global economy is being transformed to further serve (and save) the ruling classes. [Further information on this corporate swindle can be found on the “NO Deal For Nature” website]. [Here it must be acknowledged that the World Wildlife Fund is complicit in the torture, murder, and displacement of Indigenous Peoples. Crimes that have been documented for over three decades. This despite the fact that Indigenous Peoples make up less than 5% of the global population, while protecting over 80% of Earth’s biodiversity.] [Source]

Global Citizen is a very corporate and very vile NGO that targets the Western youth demographic. On March 11, 2020 it published an article highlighting the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which was formed at the 2017 Davos gathering, by Norway, India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the World Economic Forum.

On March 10, 2020, the “sister CEPI” was announced: the “COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator”.  The Gates Foundation and Mastercard’s Impact Fund charity have jointly committed $125m in seed funding. [Source]

[Further reading on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: The Gates Foundation, Ebola, and Global Health Imperialism, Jacob Levich, September 7, 2015]

March 17, 2020: The World Economic Forum Twitter account

Stephanie McMillan: “The Capitalist Mode of Production: It strives to monetize every conceivable material and immaterial thing. It won’t stop, can’t stop until it either converts the entire world into dead commodities, or we stamp it out and replace it. Solidarity to everyone struggling in some way against exploitation, oppression, imperialism, ecocide, and the global capitalist system that relies on these crimes as integral to its functioning. We are everywhere, and as a social force we will be unstoppable.”

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The following video is the short fictional movie screened at the “Event 201 Pandemic Exercise”, a tabletop exercise [Running time: 19:10]:

https://youtu.be/BfRWJN1aSpY