It seems strange that one of the world’s richest men would feel the need for a book tour to boost sales. But that is what Bill Gates is doing, granting a series of interviews with deferential journalists.
The thesis of his book and his interviews is that we should have locked down harder, sooner, and more precisely. Plus the vaccines need to be better next time.
But make no mistake: in his view, there is no overall failure in the whole theory of pandemic control they deployed two years ago. That is sound. To be sure, mistakes were made but we can only learn from them, which is why public health agencies need more resources, more intelligence, more power, more deference.
In this interview, Bill grants that he did not know the demographics of risk of the pathogen, even though the whole world knew in late January.
And in this interview, he grants that there was no chance for eradication of covid, and also that “young people don’t get sick very often,” which makes one wonder about the reasons for the extended lockdowns, from which the poor suffered most. He has regrets but hey, who doesn’t?
His theme is the same as we are hearing all over the planet. Yes, it could have been done better but the people who did this to us have only learned from their errors and they will do better next time.
Even on vaccines, Bill is somehow sure that the next time the vaccine will stop infection and spread, will be one dose, and probably won’t be an injection, as if these are points no one could have hoped for in this round, and as if this is all just a matter of funding more R&D. Just like Windows Millennium Edition, it will get better.
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