Bill Gates continued his media interviews this weekend, appearing on CBS This Morning and FOX News Sunday to talk about the COVID-19 outbreak.
- The White House said last week that the U.S. could face 100,000 to 240,000 deaths due to COVID-19. "If we do the social distancing properly, we should be able to get out of this with a death number well short of that," Gates said in an interview with FOX News' Chris Wallace, adding that "it's very important those numbers are out there" to show the seriousness of the pandemic. He said the distancing mandates and proper testing — prioritizing who gets tested (medical personnel, essential workers, etc.) and getting results within 24 hours — should be done on a national level.
- Asked about his earlier warnings of a COVID-19-like pandemic, Gates said that less than 5% of "what should have been done was done" since his 2015 TED Talk. "People didn't get that this is the biggest single threat that could disrupt our way of life," he said. "Even having predicted that as a risk, I'm really stunned at how tough it is to go through this. The medical costs, the economic costs, the psychological costs — everybody's lives been completely upended. That's not just the United States, it's almost the entire world."
- On CBS This Morning, Gates said mass gatherings "may not come back at all" until a vaccine is widely available. He has not spoken to President Trump, but said his foundation is in discussions with the CDC, NIH, and pharmaceutical companies about working together on vaccines and drugs. Gates said last week on The Daily Show that the Gates Foundation will spend billions on the COVID-19 vaccine effort.
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