In the epidemic shown, which would spread throughout the world very quickly, over 30 million people die.
Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.
Prediction: Statements about events outside the person's control, checked once they fell due: did they come true?
What would count as true or false
This is a statement about what a model shows, so it is judged as of 2015. True: the model Gates presented in his 2015 TED talk (the Institute for Disease Modeling simulation of a 1918-like airborne flu) projected more than 30 million deaths. Mostly true: the model projected deaths close to but marginally below 30 million (about 28–30 million), or there is a minor discrepancy in how the scenario was described. Mixed: model versions or presentations differ, with some above and some well below 30 million. Mostly false: the model projected substantially fewer deaths (for example 15–28 million). False: the model projected far fewer deaths, or the model or scenario did not exist as described.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (3)
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E1 Bill Gates on a global epidemic: ‘Time is not on our side’ | Fortune Fortune · 18 March 2015
“Gates cited statistics that model an epidemic like the 1918 Spanish flu causing 33.3 million deaths worldwide in less than a year.”
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E2 Read National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine · 5 June 2019
“Six months into the simulated pandemic, when maximum vaccine production would be available, an estimated 33 million people had died.”
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E3 Bill Gates Warns a New Disease Could Kill 30 Million People in 6 Months ScienceAlert (reprinting Business Insider) · 28 December 2018
“Gates presented a simulation by the Institute for Disease Modelling that found that a new flu like the one that killed 50 million people in the 1918 pandemic would now most likely kill 30 million people within six months.”
Reasoning
Fortune's report on the 2015 TED talk (E1) says the model Gates cited showed an epidemic like the 1918 Spanish flu causing 33.3 million deaths worldwide in less than a year. The National Academies (E2) describe a simulated pandemic with an estimated 33 million deaths six months in. Business Insider, as reprinted by ScienceAlert (E3), says Gates presented an Institute for Disease Modelling simulation of a 1918-like flu that would most likely kill 30 million people within six months. Taken together, the independent evidence shows the model projected more than 30 million deaths, which meets the criteria for true.
Cite this claim
Bill Gates, “In the epidemic shown, which would spread throughout the world very quickly, over 30 million people die.” (said 2015). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_d861e61e9211, method 0.1.0+c876030c, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_d861e61e9211
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More prediction claims by Bill Gates
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Mixed
“We believe these new tools will soon begin bending the curve in a big way.”
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Mostly false
“Guinea worm, an incredibly painful disease whose sufferers spend months incapacitated while worms that can be several feet long burst out of their legs, will also be gone soon, thanks in large part…”
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Mostly false
“We can get polio out of Africa this year and out of every country in the world in the next several years.”
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Mostly true
“If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it's most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war.”
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Resolved true
“The climate work, there’ll be some policy things that are less favorable.”
Some government policies affecting climate work will become less favorable than before.
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.