As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts the globe, rumors abound online about the origin of the virus. On March 16, @freedom_faction posted an image on Instagram along with the claim that "COVID-19 was launched" a month after billionaire Bill Gates hosted a "high-level pandemic exercise" event.
"#BillGates hosted a closed-door meeting for global elites and the invitation came with a #COVID19 #coronavirus plush toy, a few months later thousands would be dead," the post reads.
"The participants of Event 201, invited there by the rich and powerful elites that rule the world, sat and war-gamed how an outbreak of COVID-19 coronavirus might go," @freedom_faction also wrote in the post. "Looks like the meeting was a success because just one month to the day later, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in China, and well, you know the rest."
The Instagram post cites a Johns Hopkins University pandemic preparedness simulation known as Event 201 as the scene. "Of course, it was invitation only, and held behind closed doors," the post reads.
Although Event 201 was a real operation, there is no evidence that it was meant to model or engineer the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Event 201 and pandemic preparation
Event 201 was a tabletop exercise that simulated a global pandemic, which resulted from a new coronavirus. The program was hosted in October by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and World Economic Forum.
The invite-only event featured medical professionals, policy experts and business analysts all focused on how different institutions would respond to the onset of a deadly virus. The fictional coronavirus — a coronavirus, in general, being a specific kind of virus — in the scenario killed 65 million people over 18 months. Joint recommendations from participants urged international cooperation both in preparing for and handling a pandemic.
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