Jun 26, 2020
Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates lamented the US is 'not even close' to doing enough to fight the pandemic, before warning that the vaccine he wants to inject into every human on the planet does require their consent first.
Speaking to Anderson Cooper at a CNN town hall on Thursday, Gates insisted the US was “experiencing a rebound” in Covid-19 infections even accounting for the increase in testing. That increase, the software tycoon reminded his interviewers, was accomplished by local governments in spite of - not because of - the White House.
Gates seemed miffed that Washington wasn’t following his instructions more closely, complaining that “it’s possible to ramp up testing for a new pathogen very, very fast” if they’d just do as they were told. He blamed the higher infection numbers in the US, which continues to lead the world with upwards of 2.5 million confirmed cases and over 125,000 deaths, on the nation’s failure to adopt the same measures as everyone else.
“Other countries” are “restraining their behavior,” imposing restrictive lockdowns and quarantines, and adopting comprehensive contact tracing, Gates hinted, sounding impatient with the US’ “very large case spread,” which he called “embarrassing.”
