Visiting with Tapper today? Bill Gates, for one, who suggested that the next few months - four to six, he said - "could be the worst of the epidemic," with a forecast of another 200K+ deaths. We don't have to have that many, and we wouldn't if people would wear masks and not mingle with others. He also said that he never thought we'd be seeing what we're seeing here; he thought we'd "do a better job handling it."
Tapper asked Gates how much credit the president and his Operation Warp Speed deserve for getting us vaccines in less than a year.
Well, the mRNA vaccines, which the first two are, our foundation and others have been backing for quite some time. Now, Pfizer teamed up with BioNtech, a partner of ours, and did not take government money. So, they went out on their own. Moderna got money before there was an Operation Warp Speed, back when it was the -- just called BARDA. And that money did help them take risks, because they're not a large company, and they got help on some of their trials work. So, the U.S. R&D funding, which is -- had been there for pandemics well before this administration, that was a contribution greater than any other country.
And, Tapper wondered, what does Gates think about Trump's Executive Order on prioritizing Americans getting the vaccine over folks in other countries?
Well, I think we need to help all of humanity here. You know, we want the world economy be going. We want to minimize the deaths. And, you know, the basic technology is a German company. And so blocking international sharing and cooperation has been disruptive and a mistake during this entire pandemic. So, we need to ramp up the capacity of all the vaccines. There will be some additional ones approved in the months ahead that are easier to scale up the manufacturing. But the U.S. has benefited from other countries' work care, and we shouldn't be entirely selfish in how we go forward.
And, when Tapper asked, "So, in your view, America first, as the president might call it, not the right approach?"
Well, the extreme idea that everybody should die until we have the very last American vaccinated, that's hardly the appropriate response.
Gates also said the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines "look very similar" (in terms of efficacy) and he expects the others "are likely to be about the same." And, he thinks "we have a real communications challenge," given poll results showing only 60% of Americans say they intend to get vaccinated.
...you have got to find out, who do people trust, make sure they have got the data. I hope, as people see it being rolling -- this vaccine rolled out, in reducing the death rate, reducing transmission to people you care about, that that 60 percent number will go up. For some jobs, like working in a nursing home, the government could decide that it's important for those people to be vaccinated, because that will save a lot of lives. And so the track record will be developed, and I think we will get over the 70 percent that should reduce the transmission dramatically.
He also said when it was his turn to get the vaccine, he'd take it publicly. He has no intention of moving to the head of the line, because
It should be based on medical need, not wealth at all. After all, this epidemic has been awful in the way that it's exacerbated inequities. It's been worse for Hispanics, worse for blacks, worse for low-income service workers, multigenerational households, a number of things that mean that, in terms of picking who gets the vaccine, we better be using equity to drive all those decisions.
He thinks "Certainly, by the summer" we'll be much closer to normal, but that it could take longer. And how about trying to do all of this stuff during a transition?
Yes, transition is complicating. But the new administration is willing to rely on actual experts, and not attack those experts. They're laying out clear plans. So, I think we will get through this in a positive way.
He said he's pleased with how Biden and his team are looking at things, working to retain key people like Dr. Fauci, how they're prioritizing things, and so on. Because of all of that, he thinks "the U.S. will not be one of the worst performers as the team comes into office."
Tapper asked him what he thinks about current administration's handling of things, the inaccurate statements, mistakes that were made, the undermining of the experts, and so on. He said it actually could have been worse, say if Trump had fired Fauci, or if Scott Atlas had been around longer. The postmortem, when it's all over, will go back further than Trump, back to 2015 when Gates and others sounded the alarm about a pandemic, what they could have done differently, and what they can learn from this one before the next one hits.
And whatever that administration is, being smart about getting the testing up fast, allowing the CDC, who are the experts, to give the message to the public, not being afraid of bad news, so that we get people ready, it's pretty clear we're going to be smarter next time.
Tapper did ask Gates for his response to talk about the "Fauci-Gates vaccine" and how he wants to inject microchips into people.
Well, I'm surprised, and I'm not even quite sure how to react. Dr. Fauci and I believe in vaccines. Vaccines have saved millions of lives. That's what our foundation is all about. And so our expertise was valuable here in getting the scale-up of those things. You have got to be willing to speak out publicly, even if it's not always well understood. So, I do worry, will this make people not want to take the vaccine, or not believe in polio eradication and our other causes that I think are valuable.
And, thinking about how history will just our performance - 20% of the world's cases, 20% of the world's deaths, but we're only 4% of the world's population.
Well, the U.S. would have been expected to be the best. You know, we have the CDC. We have the most PCR machines. We have got the NIH, all this capacity. And, sadly, before the epidemic, in the first two or three months of the epidemic, we didn't get on top of it like many countries did. So, figuring out where we need to change things, these postmortems over the next year will guide us. But it's a tragedy that we weren't able to respond like we could have.
Ain't that the truth.
Masks on; as Gates said, there's little downside to wearing one - and we have to get through the next four to six months.
See you around the virtual campus.
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