In January 2020, a couple of months after the August 2019 BlackRock going direct plan, but before the start of the "pandemic" on March 11, the Director of the $33 billion Wellcome Trust, Jeremy Farrar, started warning money managers about the shape of things to come in several briefing calls.
In this way selected investors could reorganise their portfolios, to make maximum financial gains.
Investors from the venture-capital firms Benchmark, Sequoia Capital and Thrive Capital, and hedge funds the Blackstone Group Inc., Citadel and Valiant Capital Management were notified, and with this inside information became big winners.
On 31 January, Farrar stated in a briefing call:
In the 20 or 30 years I’ve been involved in emerging infections. I’ve never seen anything that has been as fast or as rapidly moving and dynamic as this has been.
We are in uncharted territory. I don’t know of another episode like this, I’ve certainly never witnessed this in my career. This will have a disruptive element, whatever happens from herein... Undoubtedly, it will have an impact on logistics, on workforces, in all jurisdictions... As airlines stop flying and maybe ships stop traveling, that will have quite a disruptive element on many industries.
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On 25 February, Farrar stated in a briefing call:
If you look back to every influenza or another epidemic of the last 100 years, you’ve always seen second or third waves. In fact, in 1918, which is the one of course everybody goes back to, the second and third waves killed more people than the first wave did.
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On 5 March, Sequoia’ stated in a memo to founders CEOs :
It will take considerable time—perhaps several quarters—before we can be confident that the virus has been contained. It will take even longer for the global economy to recover its footing. Some of you may experience softening demand; some of you may face supply challenges. While The Fed and other central banks can cut interest rates, monetary policy may prove a blunt tool in alleviating the economic ramifications of a global health crisis. We suggest you question every assumption about your business.
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On 16 March, Farrar stated in a briefing call:
This is now a human infection, it’s not going to disappear like SARS and I think you will see multiyear cycles. Whether seasonal or not or driven by something else, we’ll wait and see but I think you’ll see multiyear cycles. And what that will be driven by is at the heart of public health and that is the balance between people that are—have been infected and are now immune and those that remain susceptible. And you can become susceptible by being born.
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On 3 June, Farrar stated in a briefing call:
The fact that people generate an immune response to this virus—we think that essentially 100% of people after [they are] infected do mount an immune response—makes it much more likely, and I am much more optimistic about our ability to make a vaccine than if you don’t create immunity after natural infection... I would be optimistic now that through the end part of 2020, and coming into 2021, we will have first-generation vaccines that will offer at least a degree of protection and for some length of time.
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