Zanny Minton Beddoes interviews Bill Gates about COVID-19

Wed Sep 23, 2020 · 198 words

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.

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