“….Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates offers insights into the COVID-19 pandemic, discussing why testing and self-isolation are essential, which medical advancements show promise and what it will take for the world to endure this crisis.”
Takeaways:
- Targeted Testing, as done in South Korea and Taiwan.
- Gate’s did agree with Taiwan being shut-out of WHO, especially . (For the record, this is due to the China Communist dictatorship’s control over the UN. Taiwan was warning the WHO about what the NY Times was calling the ‘Wuhan Virus’ from December and was ignored.)
- South Korea did not have to implement a nation-wide shut down because they did such an excellent job at early testing to isolate those with COVID-19.
- Testing should be prioritized for health care workers in constant contact with patients and for those non-health-care workers who are symptomatic given the lack of supply of convenient COVID-19 kits to test everyone.
- The COVID-19 testing problem will be resolved when reliable, in-home, self-test kits that deliver same-day results, are available.
- Isolation & Shut-Down
- If you cannot do a proper job on testing early, then you need to shut down movement to “flatten the curve“
- Once the majority of COVID-19 carriers are isolated, the economy can reopen once you have done proper testing.
- Mass vaccination in the long-run is the solution according to Gates. He has spent a hundred million dollars in advancing vaccination, particularly in third-world countries.
Delay in COVID Testing: “Too many chefs in the kitchen” or “All eggs in one basket”?
The interviewer, head of TED Chris Anderson, attempts to blame free-markets when he asks is the delay in the U.S. getting COVID-19 tests out in time due to “too many chefs in the kitchen.” (In a market there are many biotech companies competing to produce the best test)
The actual cause of the delay in COVID-19 testing was that there was only one “universal” government chef in the kitchen — the CDC — which only approved one “universal” test created by the state and forbade all the “recipes” (tests) from other chefs (private companies) — and the CDC’s test did not work. CDC-FDA “universal” socialist medicine was the cause of the delay in this case.
A better metaphor would be “putting all your testing eggs in one government-controlled basket.”
Thankfully, private U.S. medical companies came to the rescue.
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Related: The next outbreak? We’re not ready | Bill Gates (2015 Talk)