- Microsoft co-founder and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Co-Chair Bill Gates recently answered questions on Reddit and CNN
Several years ago, Microsoft co-founder and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Co-Chair Bill Gates gave a TED Talk where he pleaded publicly for governments to pay attention to pandemics. Gates pointed out that “if anything kills more than 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus.”
Recently, Gates participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session to answer a few questions.
Here are some of the responses from the Q&A session:
Q.) Reddit user Jollyroger84103: “Can you provide any estimates for how much of the world’s population might become infected?”
A.) “This will vary a lot by country. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore acted quickly and will have very few cases. Even China will stay at a low level of their population (less than .01%) so far. Thailand is another exemplar. Unfortunately in poorer countries doing social distancing is much harder. People live in close proximity and need to work to get their food so there could be countries where the virus will spread broadly.”
Q.) Reddit user iknoweverythingkinda
What is the projected amount of positive cases in 1 month? 3 months? 6 months? Any thoughts or theories as to what will happen in China when the lockdown is lifted? Is it possible that a 2nd wave could come out?
A.) “China is not reporting much rebound. The number of cases in South Korea is going in the right direction. If people who test positive isolate themselves then the spread can be very low. The sooner people know they are infected the sooner they can isolate.”
Q.) Reddit user That RandomIdiot: Why do you think most world governments weren’t prepared if you and other experts warned of such events such as this?
A.) No one could predict what the chance of a new virus emerging was. However we did know it would happen at some point either with a flu or some other respiratory virus. There was almost no funding. The creation of CEPI which was funded by our foundation, Wellcome, Norway, Japan, Germany and the UK was a step but tiny compared to what should have happened. We prepare for possible wars and fires and now we have to have preparation for epidemics treated with the same seriousness. The good news is that our biological tools including new ways to make diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines make it possible to have a strong response system for naturally caused epidemics.
Q.) Reddit user Planeweb: Is there any chance that the 18 month timeline for development of a vaccine can be shortened, and by how much?
A.) This is a great question. There are over 6 different efforts going on to make a vaccine. Some use a new approach called RNA which is unproven. We will have to build lots of manufacturing for the different approaches knowing that some of them will not work. We will need literally billions of vaccines to protect the world. Vaccines require testing to make sure they are safe and effective. Some vaccines like the flu don’t for the elderly.
The first vaccines we get will go to health care workers and critical workers. This could happen before 18 months if everything goes well but we and Fauci and others are being careful not to promise this when we are not sure. The work is going at full speed.
Q.) Reddit user onemanstrong: Can you explain briefly what most Americans can do to help other Americans in this moment of crisis?
A.) A big thing is to go along with the “shut down” approach in your community so that the infection rate drops dramatically to let us go back to normal as soon as possible. Some people like health care workers will be doing heroic work and we need to support them. We do need to stay calm even though this is an unprecedented situation.
Q.) Reddit user Hafomeng: What do you think about China’s response to the outbreak? How would you rate their response on a scale 1-10?
A.) After January 23 when they realized how serious it was they did strong social isolation which made a huge difference. Of course that isolation created a lot of difficulties for the people involved but they were able to stop the case spread. Other countries will do it somewhat differently but a combination of testing and social isolation clearly works and that is all we have until we get a vaccine.
Earlier this week, Gates also participated in a CNN Townhall where he answered questions as well:
