Since stepping down as Microsoft Corp. chief executive officer in 2000, Gates has dedicated himself and his $120 billion fortune to improving lives for the world’s poor people. This year’s Goalkeepers Report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation documents the impact of Covid-19 on areas such as education, nutrition, housing and health care. It found vaccination levels for all diseases globally have dropped to the lowest in 25 years because of pandemic lockdowns and economic destabilization.
Developing World
While Gates applauds the billions of dollars that the Trump administration has invested to secure U.S. vaccine supplies under Operation Warp Speed, he’s frustrated by the lack of government funding for manufacturing and procurement in the developing world.
By spending an additional $8 billion to $10 billion on global vaccinations, he said, the U.S. would save “trillions” in lost economic output, not to mention lives and livelihoods. And it would help prevent the virus from re-emerging in wave after wave of infection.
“The inequity of this -- whether it’s between citizens in the country, blue collar versus white collar, blacks experiencing a higher sickness rate than others -- poor countries can’t borrow money and spend money like the U.S. and other rich countries have,” Gates said. “Almost every dimension of inequity has been accentuated here.”
To his own dismay, Gates has become a polarizing figure in the pandemic era, as conspiracy theorists aligned with Trump found common ground in the U.S. anti-vaccine movement. Some have accused him of creating and spreading Covid-19.
In the interview, Gates rejected that notion as “crazy” and suggested social media companies are to blame for allowing such “falsehoods” to spread unchecked.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.