January 17, 2024 - 6:30pm
Today’s panel discussion on “Disease X” — an unknown and hypothetical future pandemic — at the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum didn’t make for easy viewing. It revealed worrying signs of the acceleration of technocratic tendencies in pandemic preparedness, which have only consolidated since Covid.
The panel began with a statement by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, which ironically attempted to clarify “misinformation” about the panel itself, believed to be the number one global threat by the WEF’s Global Risks Report 2024. As Tedros stated, we should not be worried about the mysterious term Disease X, which is simply a placeholder to help plan for future biological threats.
Before the panel this week, social media fears abounded that Disease X would be used as an excuse to reintroduce more lockdowns and vaccine mandates. Yet despite Tedros going on to advocate, rightly, for strengthening primacy healthcare, education and supporting communities to help prepare for Disease X, he did not address these fears, nor the reasons why people might be distrustful of the panelists.
This year’s Davos theme centred on rebuilding trust, but the pandemic panel failed to mention the mistakes made during the Covid period. Curiously, the only reference to lockdown was made in passing by Preetha Reddy, a health executive from India, who recommended that the pandemic response could learn more from the army. “At any time, anything can happen and we don’t know what side it can come from,” she stated.
Unfortunately, the focus on Disease X is indicative of a broader phenomenon: the rise of our new biomedical security state, best represented by the technocratic governance structures that drove emergency laws on lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, quarantines, school closures and censorship.
This is interwoven into the semantic origins of Disease X, which was christened in the WHO R&D Blueprint in 2017 to assist prioritising research and development particularly for vaccines, treatments and tests. It has since become a core driving force for the proliferation of public-private partnerships (PPP) in the global pandemic preparedness industry.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeIs there no vaccine for this “Disease X”? Why is there no vaccine? What are the symptoms? I’ve been sneezing a lot lately; does that mean I have Disease X? I better go to the doctor right away!
No! 97% of experts agree that you should NOT go to the doctor. Unless you’re trans or a trans-positive lesbian or a woman who has been “assaulted” by T or a contributor to the Democratic Campaign Commitee.
Or a Certified Expert.
They’re not going to let go of their vision of a technocratic utopia willingly. They’ll have to be forced to listen to the will of the people, either through existing democratic processes, or, failing that, through some form of civil disobedience. They’ll eventually lose because human nature can’t be altered by any means they possess, but they will probably do a lot of damage by trying to achieve their impossible vision of the future. What amazes me is how blind they seem to be to the reality they face. They are absolutely hated by a solid majority of people. Populist movements are rising everywhere in the western world. China and Russia have never played the globalist game and only use globalism when it’s convenient for them. The global south will continue to industrialize regardless of emissions targets. Most people see the COVID response as a failure to one degree or another. There are major wars in Europe and the Middle East, with more brewing. Freedom of the seas is being successfully disrupted by a bunch of rebels living in tents with nothing but cheap drones. What, exactly, will it take to make these people realize that, gee, ya know, I don’t think this is gonna work. Almost every trend is against them, yet they seem to be strolling merrily along as if it was still 2016. I have no idea whether this is a result of ideological echo chambers, quasi-religious devotion to dogmas, or good old regular stupidity, but regardless, what this says to me is that these people aren’t competent to make the decisions they’re trying to make.
“They are absolutely hated by a solid majority of people.”
They are absolutely hated by a solid majority of insane conspiracy theorists who are dumb enough to think they can trust Donald Trump but not credentialed scientists and doctors.
There – fixed it for you! You’re welcome!
I think rather tragically you will find a lot of people who think the COVID response was appropriate, if not too slow. These people believe corporate media, ‘the science’ and the like and have zero questioning ability iro what drives and influences what.
‘human natured can’t be altered by any means they posess’ – they believe thats where mRNA vaxx can play a role 😮
This author consistently writes nothing but conspiratorial paranoia garbage. Why do Unherd keep publishing this absolute shte that belongs in the Reddit manosphere domain?
Just conspiracy theories because these crooks wouldn’t do anything wrong would they!?
“So while the term Disease X represents a future unknown health emergency, it has also become a catalyst for a particular vision of health response dominated by corporate, technological and state power.”
I don’t have an issue with govts planning for a future pandemic. And really, it’s the govt and health industry that has to lead the response. Who else will do it?
My issue is with the pathetic and destructive response to the last pandemic. We should push institutions to develop a more reasonable and holistic response to the next pandemic by voting for more reasonable people.
“The WEF risks repeating Covid-era mistakes in future pandemics”.
They didn’t make any “mistakes”. It was a pre-planned and co-ordinated mass experiment in population control. It was also remarkably successful. All they need to do next time is to mop up and completely silence any dissenting voices which is what the global pandemic preparedness treaty is really all about.
The WHO Pandemic Treaty will ensure that vaccines mandates are enforced along with the biometric information passports that the technocratic globalists dream about. All part of the plan for one world government.
Completely absurd. We are entering a phase of multiple competing powers. “One world government” seems to be completely incompetent at preventing hosts of “civil wars”…
“The WEF risks repeating Covid-era mistakes in future pandemics.”They don’t consider them mistakes. The only thing they regret is not making them more restrictive and long lasting.
“Man, insofar as he is a scientist, does not care about his own stature in the universe or about his position on the evolutionary ladder of animal life; his ‘carelessness’ is his pride and glory. The simple fact that physicists split the atom without any hesitation the very moment they knew how to do it, although they realized full well the enormous destructive potentialities of their operation, demonstrates that the scientist does not even care about the survival of the human race or, for that matter, about the survival of the planet itself.”
So Tewdros said we shouldn’t be worried about disease X and this eejit makes that the starting point of a conspiracy theory rant about people being frightened by the terrible disease X. Why do you think we developed effective covid vaccines so quickly? Because all around the world researchers have for years been working on the groundwork for viral vaccines, which meant that most of the work had already been done, thus quicker vaccines, thus lives saved. But no, this is techno utopianism with a Frankenstein twist, sounds like a Halloween themed cocktail. Genetic engineering is here to stay, and provides answers to problems way beyond disease x. The only answer to poor bio security is better bio security and by the way, the burden of evidence regarding the origin of covid is a naturally occurring mutation [it happens all the time] not a Wuham bio security leak. I can evidence that but would that make me a member of the mistrusted elite? In this fool’s eyes, maybe yes.
The jabs were not vaccines and they were not effective – even Gates admitted that after making billions out of them. They stopped neither transmission nor infection. They appear to have made those vaccinated even more prone to contracting Covid and left far too many people suffering terrible, life changing side effects.
Evidence for this?
Joe Rogan, Aaron Rodgers and Russell Brand of course!
Of course! How could I have been so blind
So I ask for evidence for a highly contentious claim and two people [or maybe two more people] display their disapproval with a thumbs down. Evidence is a real pain in the arse, it stops us from enjoying all those delicious conspiracy theories with that thrilling feeling that everyone’s out to get us. Sums up a lot of the Unherd comment crew.
More thumbs down. Some of you just can’t help yourselves
I am not sure what evidence you have seen that proves it wasn’t a leak from the Wuhan lab. If you have it, the FBI and others who are now tending to side on the leak theory would no doubt welcome you to supply them with it.
Happy to help. First lets look at the genetic makeup of covid 19. If covid 19 is a lab designed ‘gain of function’ gene modification, intended to be destroyed but escaped from the lab then you would expect to see modifications to be done in an organised way which would be obvious from looking at the genetic profile, because it is easier and more sensible to do this. For a naturally occurring modification we would see no organised change, but random changes here and there on the genome. Guess which one we’re seeing? The FBI are well aware of this. We might of course claim that the Chinese created an edited genome disguised as a lab designed genome and then released it on their own people but how far down the rabbit hole do we want to go? I didn’t use the word ‘prove’ by the way, I talked about the burden of evidence. I’d be interested to see your evidence that the FBI believe the leak theory.
I never it was a gain ohttps://unherd.com/2023/04/why-did-peter-daszak-change-his-mind/f function virus. However the rapidity in which the
I never mentioned gain of function so that’s a complete red herring, and in a he doth protest too much manner almost Peter Daksak-like
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64806903 for the FBI view
Well you should have mentioned gain of function because the conspiracy theory is that scientists tampered with virus genes so as to reproduce more dangerous strains, to be studied and then destroyed. Its either that or down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Your link doesn’t connect to anything, who the hell is Peter Dansak?
I totally disagree. The increasing evidence is that covid was indeed the result of gain of function research from a very insecure Chinese laboratory in Wuhan. It would be a most remarkable coincidence otherwise. Interestingly both Chinese and US institutions have their fingers all over this.
Where does your evidence come from? The Chinese government, who destroyed a major database?
My evidence comes from looking at the covid 19 genome. Its true that the Wuhan lab had poor biosecurity but the evidence is in the genome. The Chinese are secretive but they’re secretive about everything.
What exactly were the Chinese, with financial support from US institutions, doing at Wuhan, in your estimation? Some of your defence sounds Jesuitical to me.
In any case they engaged in a systematic cover up after the virus was released. Unfortunately all too many (but not all) western governments were all too happy to follow suit, rip up existing pandemic plans, suspend civil liberties, and rubbish and demonise any dissenting voices.
There are extreme conspiracy theories abounding it is true, but this is largely the responsibility of those who (deservedly) lost the trust of much of the public. And, yes, the benefits of those controversial vaccines, especially for young people, was greatly exaggerated.
Never mind the hard evidence, lets have a good conspiracy theory rant. What the Wuhan lab was doing, with support [co operation, evidence sharing] of US and other labs, was researching into naturally occurring viruses which might cause us harm. This isn’t the arms industry, countries and institutions co operate with each other all the time on matters of public health, which is why we knew about the problems with Wuhan’s bio security. What happened once the virus took hold is a different issue so why are you bringing it up, it’s not relevant to this discussion. I’ve provided you with hard evidence which you completely ignore, instead you go off into a scattergun conspiracy theory.
The Davos gatherings of the rich and powerful are crimes against humanity.