"When Oxford University developed the vaccine AstraZeneca ended up owning... It was actually Bill Gates who lobbied Oxford... to say no, this has to be sold to a drug company'... so it becomes 'IP'... the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have been central players in ensuring that no precedent is set in the context of COVID for commercially valuable products to break the normal market-based rules on how what's called 'IP' is distributed."
"There was a desire - even on the part of some liberals - to call for the state to be even tougher in imposing lockdowns, in enforcing vaccines... [The left were] reluctant to talk about the question of policing during the pandemic, because it seemed like this would play into the conservative anti-lockdown movement but... it was a mistake really for the left or for liberals to not take up those issues."
"The WHO was completely marginal in the international response to COVID. What you have instead is what are called multi-stakeholder bodies. These are not part of the UN. They're essentially just bodies that are set up by corporations, which masquerade as being motivated and organised by... some kind of concern for equity in, for example, the distribution of vaccines ... so they provide a kind of buffer against criticism of the drug companies."
"Public money... is given to drug companies to fund their research on developing vaccines... Moderna received US$10 billion... to develop their COVID19 vaccine. Plus, governments pay the drug companies in advance to lock in sales of the vaccine, even before it's been developed, and those aren't dependent on the success of the vaccine. So... the drug companies are basically operating risk-free... Moderna made a 66% net profit on its vaccine."