Event 201

Video Transcript:

On October 18, 2019, the John Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill and the Linda Gates Foundation hosted event 201. A three and a half hour tabletop exercise that simulated a series of dramatic scenario-based discussions confronting dilemmas associated with a response to a hypothetical event 201 simulates an outbreak of a novel, zoonic, transmitted from bats, vint pigs, vint people. It eventually becomes, quote, effectively transmissible from person to person, leading to a, you guessed it, severe. On behalf of our partners in the Bill and Linda Gates Foundation, event 201 took place five months before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. The participants of the event are some of the same people that are now deeply involved in the real pandemic and profiting from it as well. Event 201 was a scripted, multi-camera, live event that was broadcast globally via the Internet. An event of this complexity and magnitude would take months to write, prep, and produce, placing the conception date at least one year prior to the actual pandemic. On behalf of our center and our partners, the World Economic Forum and the Bill and the Linda Gates Foundation, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to our audience here in New York, as well as our larger virtual audience participating online today. The event 201 scenario is fictional. Today's scenario is going to simulate meetings of a multi-stakeholder group called the Make Emergency Board. We're at the start of what's looking like it will be a severe pandemic. And there are problems emerging that can only be solved by global business and governments working together. There has been some conspiracy theories that are around about the potential that pharmaceutical companies or the UN have released this for their own benefit. And maybe this is a time for us to showcase some cases where we are able to bring forward some bad actors and leave it before the courts to decide whether they have actually spread some fake news. A new... Infected people got a respiratory illness with symptoms ranging from mild flu-like signs to severe pneumonia. In related news, a significant demand for personal protective equipment, like N95 masks and gloves, are on the rise. Hatians are overwhelming healthcare facilities. People are avoiding public spaces out of fear of infection and in compliance with public health recommendations. Our US affiliate has just released polling results on public expectations for everyone. And 65% of those polls are eager to take the vaccine even if it's experimental. I'm not optimistic about having an event in time to be relevant during this. With enough money and political will, anything is possible. Penalties have been put in place for spreading harmful falsehoods, including arrests. If the solution means controlling and reducing access to information, I think it's the right choice. What exactly are the risks and benefits of staying home from work? Absolutely, we need to save lives. But we literally cannot afford a heavy-headed response that suffocates our economy. The world saw large-scale protests and in some places riots. This led to violent crackdowns in some countries and even martial law. The public lost trust in their respective administration. Economists say the economic turmoil caused by such a big impact will last for years. The societal impacts, the loss of faith in government, the distrust of news, and the breakdown of social cohesion could last even longer. We have to ask, did this need to be so bad? This one, we first were studying event 201. This is what they played on the big screen at event 201 on October 18, 2019, just six weeks before the Wuhan, you know what, came out before the planned organized partial shutdown with the US economy was hatched in public. But watch what they played here. How would you know that they were going to shut down that social media was going to start shutting down and censoring quote-unquote disinformation and watch this? It's like they wrote the script for everything. Yesterday about the cap's pandemic. Twitter and Facebook are reporting, they've identified. By the way, yesterday was the first official anniversary of event 201 where they planned the world's demise. And deleted, a disturbing number of accounts dedicated to spreading disinformation about the outbreak. For more on this, we go to our correspondent, Katalina Parks. Chen, these accounts were created by several state sponsored- Try to get out of your mind that this is horrible script reading and horrible acting and try to just focus on what they're saying. Groups intending to sew political discord and some individuals are seemingly seeking to gain financial advantages. Care workers and minority populations has been increasing. A recent riot highlights the real danger in these posts. Countries are reacting in different ways as to how best to manage the overwhelming amounts of dis and misinformation circulating over the internet. In some cases, limited internet shutdowns are being implemented to quail panic. Thank you, Katalina. For more on this... What is that day of prophecy of things to come? Limited shutdowns of the internet, really? This we are joined by experts on crisis communications and social media. Kevin Mackely's and Sarah Lee. To me, it is clear, countries need to make strong efforts to manage both myths and disinformation. We know social media companies are working around the clock to combat these disinformation campaigns. Remember, truth is truth in the empire of lies and truth is the new hate speech and you can't go to war until you decimate the truth. Truth is the first casualty in any war, including the most important war of all the war in your mind, the information war. So that's what we're seeing today. So what they're calling hate speech, what they're calling misinformation and disinformation is usually just people asking questions. Fusk of identifying every bad actor is immense. An expert's agree that new disinformation campaigns are being generated every day. This is a huge problem that's going to keep us from ending the pandemic and might even lead to the fall of governments as we saw in the Arab Spring. Yeah, we can't have that. We can't have the fall of governments, can we? If the solution means controlling and reducing access to information, I think it's the right choice. Every single thing that you have seen play out in front of your eyes, all of them laid out in their table top exercise, which by the way, fact checkers have said, has nothing to do with the coronavirus outbreak. Just happenstance. This is that wonderful universe of improbabilities where events just co-emerge and the nature conveniently backs itself into our architecture. Some countries have banned travel from the worst affected areas. The president has made a decision to spend all travel to the United Kingdom and Ireland. Dis and misinformation circulating over the internet. Across the world, misinformation about the virus is being shared online. A significant demand for N95 masks and gloves are on the rise. The demand for N95 masks to prevent the deadly airborne virus has such. We could eventually have 52 million treatment courses per year, but it will take many months to get there. We're still many months out from having something that we can really deploy to the public. And 65% of those Pold are eager to take the vaccine even if it's experimental. The new poll finds that 49% of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine shouldn't affect it one, be discovered.