Really enjoyed The Economist’s Covid-19: Zanny Minton Beddoes interviews Bill Gates (YouTube).
The interview is over 40 minutes long, so I summarized 11 key takeaways:
- US failed to prepare for the virus and also failed when it hit.
- China failed and made some mistakes in the beginning, but succeeded in suppressing the virus.
- China set the tone for the world with its novel, strict lockdown.
- US is doing badly due to optimizing for individual freedom, bad luck and an uncoordinated CDC response.
- The current administration sidelined the CDC.
- The current administration got caught up in “look at what a good job we did.”
- Changing administrations is unlikely to rebuild the trust needed for changing people’s behavior.
- Mask wearing attitudes are already set, but vaccine attitudes are up next.
- The digital world allowed economic damage to not be worse than it already is.
- The worst is still ahead for the developing world.
- Like a pandemic, climate change requires trust in government to see things that will be very problematic and then to take the steps to avoid an awful outcome.