Diff for "HowToPrevent"

How to prevent the next pandemic

Bill Gates, 2022, Beaverton Library 614.5924 GAT

https://gatesnotes.com

Background

My first encounters with software were PDP-8 Focal and Fortran at Tektronix and three universities. Then C and Unix at Tektronix.

My first "encounter" with Bill Gates was the BASIC software written by Microsoft for the Commodore PET.

The PET used a botched version of the IEEE-488 GPIB protocol as a peripheral interface; the Tektronix 4051 graphics workstation implemented GPIB correctly. I wanted to use Tektronix peripherals with the PET, and also an 8 inch floppy drive that I designed a GPIB interface for, but the botched PET firmware wouldn't communicate reliably.

So, I read the binary ROM code, and disassembled it into usable 6502 processor source code. There were a few free bytes and inefficiencies in that tightly packed code, I tightened it more and made enough space to fix the GPIB protocol. On a trip to the bay area, I gave my repaired 6502 source and binary (on CPM floppy) to Chuck Peddle at Commodore, along with a commented printed listing.

Note that neither the ROM package, nor the code, nor the PET purchase agreement referred to a copyright for that code.

Chuck was THRILLED by the listing, and showered me with tchotchkes ... including mechanical blueprints for the PET, but not the schematics, shucky darns. As a leader in the Bay Area hobby computer community, he gave copies of the listing to friends, who copied them for friends, etc. A (9th generation?) copy of my anonymous listing reached Microsoft and Bill Gates. I was told by a Microsoft employee ( a science fiction convention friend ) that Bill Gates threw a carpet-chewing tantrum when he saw the listing ("but it's copyrighted, it says right here in the comments for the source code!") ... but that is probably fiction as well. Anyway, the statute of limitations has expired, Bill Gates has mellowed considerably (thank you Melinda), and I will NOT pay for that old carpet and any long-ago dental repair.

That said, I would gladly help Bill Gates stop a pandemic or three. A far better pass-time than dancing paperclip animations and novel-length EULAs and Jeffrey Epstein parties. I very much hope Mr. Gate's motivation is compassion and hope, not past-is-dead guilt or shame or similar handicaps. A vision of health and prosperity for all people, a vision that I share.

The Book Itself

Well written, but it feels mostly ghost-written. As it should be, the mission is to improve global health, not earn authorial fame for Mr. Gates. Another implied mission should be to convince hundreds of other entrepreneurs like himself to devote the time and resources and vision to help, and create convincing motivations for all eight billion of us, eight billion paths converging towards a plague-free (perhaps someday disease-free) world.

(Bill - if you invite ever invite me for dinner, serve veg. COVID happened because wealthy Chinese served raccoon dogs. A few million bucks spent on "better-than-real" fake meat could save millions of future lives, and mega-hectares of nature. Make "super-better" the new luxury meal.

Also, gatesnotes does not mention "Cell Biology by the Numbers" 2016 by Milo and Phillips. Fascinating, quantified, beautifully illustrated explanations of MANY things cellular and molecular. You will be engrossed, please do not charge me your hourly rate for the time your irresistable deep dive consumes ).

• p10 Nathan Myhrvold worries about lab-engineered bioweapons. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2290382

• p13 NEJM The Next Epidemic — Lessons from Ebola 2015 Bill Gates

• p13 TED The next outbreak? We're not ready 2015 Bill Gates

• I purchased 1000 surplus/new-in-box 3M N95 masks in 2015, donated MANY in 2020.

• 95% of viewers watched this video after 2019

• p14 CEPI Coalition for Epidemic Preparednes
• p20 2021 White House announced next vaccine 100 day plan

• p20 note: vaccine Efficacy:clinical trial Effectiveness:deployed in world

• p23 Global Burden of Disease, Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) UW Seattle

• p24 IHME excess deaths ... not updated after 2021
• p26 COVID success correlates to trust in government
• p29 White House refuses help with software
• p39 Invest in innovative research, private sector translates to products
• p43 analogy to 311K pro and 740K volunteer firefighters in 30K US fire departments, need full time global pandemic response experts

• p45 GOARN Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network

  • related UW EINet

• p47 A global epidemic team ( Gates neologism GERM ) would need 3000 full time employees, many skills, $1B/y

• p49 1988 to 2021 WHO and Rotary eradicate polio 350K/y -> 5 in 2021

• p53 Early detection PHEIC

• p57 Disease surveillance: Postal workers in Japan, teachers in Vietnam, US sewage surveillance

• p58 childhood poverty "diarrhea deaths" traced to rotavirus, affordable new vaccine prevented 200K deaths 2010-19

• p59 CHAMPS Child Health and Mortality Prevention Service

• p59 Minimally Invasive Autopsy
• p63 PCR detects lower levels of virus sooner and longer than rapid tests (graph of viral load over time)

• p63 pee stick pregnancy test, lateral flow immunoassay

• p64 LumiraDX

• p65 Nexar "from Douglas Scientific", acquired by LGC Biosearch Technologies

• p66 Infectious disease experts at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Fred Hutch

• p66 Institute for Disease Modelling IDM

• p67 Seattle Flu Study 2018, 3 year
• p69 phylogenetic tree models influenza spread through community

• p79 Hutch Trevor Bedford and IDM Mike Famulare find closely related COVID cases

• p74 March 2020 https://familymedicine.uw.edu/blog/seattle-coronavirus-assessment-network-scan/ SCAN

• p75 feds order halt in May 2020, policy loosens two weeks later, restart June 46K tests (mostly home) before 2021

• p78 South African Center for Epidemiological Modelling and Surveillance detected and characterized Omicron in late 2021

  • and of course, ideologues blamed South Africa for creating Omicron, instead of detecting it arriving from the rest of Africa

• p78 London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

• p80 March 2020 UK epidemiologist Neil Ferguson predicts 500K UK and 2M US deaths IF people do not change their behavior

• p81 Out of 30 most recent outbreaks, 3/4 involved nonhuman animals (no cite, which animals?)

• p84 On Immunity (2014) by Eula Biss, Beaverton Lib 616.079 BIS

Team

• Keith Klugman p04 foundation scientist
• Trevor Mundel p14 leads global health
• Nathan Myhrvold p10

Others

• Larry Brilliant p018 epidemiologist "Outbreaks are inevitable, pandemics are optional"
• Anthony Fauci p15 head of NIH, phone call
• Bill Foege p06 epidemiologist, CDC former head

• David Senser in Michael Lewis The Premonition (read in late 2021)