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Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told his employees before it was declared that a pandemic was going to happen in 2020. At the same time, he told staff that Moderna would need to make a billion doses of vaccine the “next year.”  He also confirmed that the CEO of GAVI knew about his pre-pandemic conversation with Moderna staff.

The conversation took place before the world knew about the covid “pandemic.” The World Health Organisation (“WHO”) only declared the “novel coronavirus (covid-19) outbreak a global pandemic” on 11 March 2020. “There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus claimed.

Bancel made the startling revelations during an appearance on a panel discussion on 18 January at the World Economic Forum’s Davos 2023 meeting. The panel discussion was hosted by Euronews. Another panellist was GAVI CEO, Seth Berkley.  Bancel was asked about the development, adoption and scaling up of the covid “vaccine” for different variants and subvariants.  He responded:

“As Seth knows, when the pandemic happened Moderna made 100,000 doses in 2019 for the whole year.

“And I remember walking after that into the office of Moderna manufacturing and I say: “How we make a billion doses next year?” And [you/they] look at me a bit funny say: “What?” I said: “Yeah we need to make a billion doses next year, there’s going to be a pandemic.”

Although it’s not clear if the pre-pandemic conversation with staff took place, in late 2019 or early 2020, it is clear that it took place before 11 March and the rest of the world knew about it, including Moderna staff.

The second statement noted above implies that both Bancel and Berkely knew beforehand that there was going to be a pandemic declared and that Moderna would be supplying at least a billion doses of a “vaccine.”  So pre-pandemic, Moderna already knew they would be given contracts to supply at least a billion doses of “vaccines.”  Moderna also knew that the “vaccines” which were still to be developed, apparently, would be manufactured “next year” – developed and trialled within one year.  And those “vaccines” were, supposedly, for an unknown virus for which the lethality, number of cases and infection rate could not have been known. 

However, the “fact-checkers,” as well as social media users, focused on the first statement and ignored the second.

A Boston-based nurse, James Cintolo, tweeted a one-minute video clip of the Davos 2023 panel discussion on 7 February 2023 which focussed on the first statement (see the end of this section).  By 10 February, when AFP USA wrote their “fact-check” article, the post had been retweeted some 13,000 times. “But the online posts, which feed into baseless claims that the pandemic was planned, misconstrue what he said about Moderna’s vaccine production,” AFP USA wrote while debunking the claims being made on social media.

Social media users claim Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel that the company produced 100,000 doses of its Covid-19 vaccine in 2019, prior to the pandemic. This is false; Bancel was referring to all shots produced by the American pharmaceutical company, he confirmed to AFP, noting that its Covid-19 jab was not developed until 2020.

Posts misrepresent Moderna CEO’s remarks at World Economic Forum, AFP USA, 10 February 2023

According to AFP USA, the footage accumulated more than 570,000 views and spread to other platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. The claim was also circulated in Spanish.

However, what the “fact-checkers” AFP didn’t address was that Bancel said: “we need to make a billion doses next year, there’s going to be a pandemic.”

So, while it’s correct that the original tweet did misrepresent Bancel’s remarks, AFP ignored the elephant in the room. AFP did however admit that Moderna started developing its covid “vaccine” in 2019. This could lend weight to Bancel’s pre-pandemic conversation with staff – that “there’s going to be a pandemic” – taking place in 2019.

Below is the tweet AFP “fact-checked.” Note where the one-minute video clip that went viral cuts off – at the most damning remark, as if it was inconsequential. 

🚨URGENT — Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel Admits Company Produced 100,000 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses In 2019 Before The Pandemic Started pic.twitter.com/KukCd7yXDw

— James Cintolo, RN FN CPT (@healthbyjames) February 7, 2023

Sometimes we have to wonder if these video clips are pushed out by the “fact-checkers” themselves, or their network, so they can debunk lesser information and in so doing cover up the pertinent information that they aren’t able to debunk. In other words, as damage control.

Who is AFP Fact Check?

AFP Fact Check is a department within Agence France-Presse (AFP).  They are an International Fact-Checking Network (“IFCN”) fact-checker.  IFCN “promotes the excellence of fact-checking to more than 100 organisations worldwide” and is “dedicated to bringing together fact-checkers worldwide to support the growing number of initiatives.” Facebook, for example, partners with “fact-checkers” who are certified through IFCN.

IFCN is owned by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.  Poynter is also the home of Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership, PolitiFact and MediaWise.  On its website, Poynter lists its significant funders who contributed $50,000 or more. Sources are organised by area of support and listed alphabetically.  They include NBC, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Google, Meta/Facebook, Microsoft, TikTok and WhatsApp.

Media Bias Fact Check notes that besides having contracts with AP, Reuters, and ITAR-TASS for exchange of news reports, AFP sells a domestic French news report to most of the world’s news agencies and provides its worldwide report to many of them.

In 1981, the New Internationalist published an article called ‘The Big Four‘ – referring to the ‘big four’ news agencies United Press International, Associated Press, Reuters, and AFP – in which they described AFP as “the only one which depends on subsidy from the government of its company – usually through official subscriptions by government offices. As a result, it is often regarded as the voice of the French government.”

Currently,  AFP is supported financially by the French state and gets up to 40 per cent of its funding from the French government.