In Singapore, the public Housing & Development Board, set up in 1960, has built more than a million flats. Close to 80% of residents live in them, and around nine in ten of these households own their home: the state sells 99-year leases at regulated prices, which families can pay for with their compulsory retirement savings. So public housing there isn't reserved for low earners: it houses most of the population.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.