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Chris Anderson. Welcome, Bill Gates.
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Bill Gates: Thank you.
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CA: All right. It's great
to have you here, Bill.
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You know, we had a TED conversation
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about three months ago
about this pandemic,
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and back then I think fewer than --
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I think that was the end of March --
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Back then, fewer than
a thousand people in the US had died,
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and fewer than 20,000 worldwide.
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I mean, the numbers now are,
like, 128,000 dead in the US
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and more than half a million worldwide.
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in three months.
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In three months.
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What is your diagnosis of what is possible
for the rest of this year?
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You look at a lot of models.
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What do you think best
and worst case scenarios might be?
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BG: Well, the range of scenarios, sadly,
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is quite large, including that,
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as we get into the fall,
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we could have death rates
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that rival the worst of what we had
in the April time period.
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If you get a lot of young people infected,
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eventually they will infect
old people again,
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and so you'll get into the nursing homes,
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the homeless shelters,
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the places where we've had
a lot of our deaths.
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The innovation track,
which probably we will touch on --
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diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines --
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there's good progress there,
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but nothing that would
fundamentally alter the fact
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that this fall in the United States
could be quite bad,
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and that's worse than
I would have expected a month ago,
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the degree to which we're back
at high mobility,
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not wearing masks,
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and now the virus actually
has gotten into a lot of cities
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that it hadn't been in before
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in a significant way,
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so it's going to be a challenge.
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There's no case where we get
much below the current death rate,
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which is about 500 deaths a day,
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but there's a significant risk
we'd go back up
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to the even 2,000 a day
that we had before,
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because we don't have the distancing,
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the behavior change,
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to the degree that we had
in April and May,
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and we know this virus
is somewhat seasonal,
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so that the force of infection,
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both through temperature, humidity,
more time indoors,
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will be worse as we get into the fall.
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CA: So there are scenarios
where in the US,
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like, if you extrapolate
those numbers forward,
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we end up with, what,
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more than a quarter of a million deaths,
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perchance, even this year
if we're not careful,
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and worldwide I guess the death toll
could by the end of the year
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be well into the millions, with an s.
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Is there evidence that the hotter
temperatures of the summer
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actually have been helping us?
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BG: They're not absolutely sure,
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but certainly the ?? model
definitely wanted to use the season,
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including temperature and humidity,
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to try and explain why May
wasn't worse than it was.
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And so as we came out
and the mobility numbers got higher,
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the models expected more infections
and deaths to come out of that,
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and the model kept wanting to say,
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"But I need to use this seasonality
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to match why May wasn't worse,
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why June wasn't worse than it was."
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And we see in the Southern Hemisphere,
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you know, Brazil,
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which is the opposite season,
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all of South America
is having a huge epidemic.
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South Africa is having
a very fast-growing epidemic.
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Fortunately, Australia and New Zealand,
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the last countries
in the Southern Hemisphere,
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are at really tiny case counts,
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and so although they have
to keep knocking it down,
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they're talking about, oh,
we have 10 cases,
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that's a big deal,
let's go get rid of that.
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So they're one of these amazing countries
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that got the numbers so low
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that test, quarantine and trace
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is working to get them,
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keep them at very near zero.
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CA: Aided perhaps a bit
by being easier to isolate
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and by less density,
less population density,
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but nonetheless smart policies down there.
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BG: Yeah. Everything is so exponential
that a little bit of good work
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goes a long ways.
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It's not a linear game.
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Contact tracing, if you have
the number of cases we have in the US,
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it's super-important to do,
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but it won't get you back down to zero.
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It'll help you be down,
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but it's too overwhelming.
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CA: OK, so in May and June in the US,
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the numbers were actually slightly better
than some of the models predicted,
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and it's hypothesized that that might be
partly because of the warmer weather.
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Now we're seeing, really,
would you describe it
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as really quite alarming upticks
in case rates in the US?
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BG: That's right.
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In, say, the New York area,
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the cases continue to go down somewhat,
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but in other parts of the country,
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primarily the South right now,
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you have increases
that are offsetting that,
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and you have testing
positive rates in young people
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that are actually higher
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than what we saw even
in some of the tougher areas,
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and so clearly younger people
have come out of mobility
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more than older people
have increased their mobility,
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so the age structure
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is right now very young, but
because of multigenerational households,
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people work in nursing care homes,
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unfortunately that will work its way back,
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both the time lag and the transmission
back up into the elderly,
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will start to push the death rate back up,
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which it is down,
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way down from 2,000
to around 500 right now.
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CA: And is that partly because
there's a three-week lag
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between case numbers and fatality numbers?
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And also, perhaps, partly because
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there have been
some effective interventions
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and we're actually seeing the possibility
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that the overall fatality rate
is actually falling a bit
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now that we've gained
some extra knowledge?
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BG: Yeah, certainly
your fatality rate is always lower
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when you're not overloaded,
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and so Italy when they were overloaded,
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Spain, even New York at the start,
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certainly China,
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there you weren't even able
to provide the basics,
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the oxygen and things.
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A study that our foundation
funded in the UK
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found the only thing
other than remdesivir
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that is a proven therapeutic,
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which is the dexamethasone,
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that for serious patients
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is about a 20 percent death reduction,
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and there's still quite
a pipeline of those things.
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You know, hydroxychloroquine
never established positive data,
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so that's pretty much done.
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There's still a few trials ongoing,
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but the list of things being tried,
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including eventually
?? antibodies,
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we will have some additional
tools for the fall.
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And so when you talk about death rates,
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the good news is some
innovation we already have
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and we will have more
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even in the fall.
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We should start to have
monoclonal antibodies,
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which is the single therapeutic
that I'm most excited about.
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CA: I'll actually ask you to tell me
a bit more about that in one sec,
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but just putting the pieces
together on death rates:
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so in a well-functioning health system,
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so take the US when places
aren't overcrowded,
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what do you think
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the current fatality numbers
are approximately going forward,
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like as a percentage of total cases?
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Are we below one percent, perhaps?
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BG: If you found every case, yes,
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you're well below one percent.
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People argue, you know, 0.4, 0.5.
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By the time you bring in
the never symptomatics,
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it probably is below 0.5,
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and that's good news.
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This disease could have been
a five percent disease.
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The transmission dynamics of this disease
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are more difficult
than even the experts predicted.
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The amount of pre-symptomatic
and never symptomatic spread,
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and the fact that it's not coughing,
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where you would kind of notice,
hey, I'm coughing.
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Most respiratory diseases make you cough.
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This one, in its early stages,
it's not coughing,
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it's singing, laughing, talking,
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actually still particularly
for the super-spreaders,
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people with very high viral loads,
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causes that spread,
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and that's pretty novel,
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and so even experts have to say,
wow, this caught us by surprise.
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The amount of asymptomatic spread
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and the fact that there's not
a coughing element
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is not a major piece like the flu or TB.
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CA: Yeah, that is devilish cunning
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by the virus.
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I mean, how much is
that non-symptomatic transmission
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as a percentage of total transmission?
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I've heard numbers it could be
as much as half of all transmissions
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are basically pre-symptomatic.
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BG: Yeah, if you count pre-symptomatics,
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then most of the studies show
that's like at 40 percent,
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and we also have never symptomatics.
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The amount of virus you get
in your upper respiratory area
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is somewhat disconnected.
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Some people will have a lot here
and very little in their lungs,
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and what you get in your lungs
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causes the really bad symptoms,
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and other organs,
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but mostly the lungs,
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and so that's when you seek treatment.
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And so the worst case
in terms of spreading
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is somebody who's got a lot
in the upper respiratory tract
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but almost none in their lungs,
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so they're not care-seeking.
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CA: Right.
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And so if you add in the never symptomatic
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to the pre-symptomatic,
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do you get above 50 percent
of the transmission
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is actually from non-symptomatic people?
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BG: Yeah, transmission
is harder to measure.
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You know, we see certain
hotspots and things,
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but that's a huge question
with the vaccine:
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will it, besides avoiding
you getting sick,
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which is what the trial will test,
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will it also stop you
from being a transmitter?
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CA: So that vaccine,
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it's such an important question,
let's come on to that,
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but before we go there,
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any other surprises
in the last couple months
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that we've learned about this virus
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that really impact how
we should respond to it?
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BG: We're still not able to characterize
who the super-spreaders are
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in terms of what that profile is,
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and we may never.
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That may just be quite random.
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If you could identify them,
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they're responsible
for the majority of transmission,
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a few people who have
very high viral loads.
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But sadly, we haven't figured that out.
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This mode of transmission,
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if you're in a room and nobody talks,
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there's way less transmission.
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That's partly why,
although planes can transmit,
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it's less than you would expect
just in terms of time proximity measures,
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because unlike, say,
a choir or a restaurant,
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you're not exhaling in loud talking
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quite as much as in
other indoor environments.
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CA: What do you think about the ethics
of someone who would go on a plane
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and refuse to wear a mask?
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BG: If they own the plane,
that would be fine.
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If there's other people on the plane,
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that would be endangering
those other people.
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CA: Early on in the pandemic,
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the WHO did not advise
that people wear masks.
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They were worried about taking them away
from frontline medical providers.
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In retrospect, was that
a terrible mistake that they made?
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BG: Yes.
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All the experts feel bad
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that the value of masks,
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which ties back somewhat
to the asymptomatics,
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if people were very symptomatic,
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like in Ebola,
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then you know it and you isolate,
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and so you don't have
a need for a mask-like thing.
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The value of masks,
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the fact that the medical masks
was a different supply chain
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than the normal masks,
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the fact you could scale up
the normal masks so well,
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the fact that it would stop
that pre-symptomatic,
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never symptomatic transmission,
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it's a mistake,
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but it's not a conspiracy,
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it's something that we now know more.
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And even now, our error bars
on the benefit of masks
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are higher than we'd like to admit,
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but it's a significant benefit.
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CA: All right, I'm going to come in
with some questions
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from the community.
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Let's pull them up there.
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Jim Pitofsky: "Do you think reopening
efforts in the US have been premature,
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and if so how far should the US go
to responsibly confront this pandemic?"
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BG: Well, the question
of how you make tradeoffs
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between the benefits, say,
of going to school
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versus the risk of people getting sick
because they go to school,
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those are very tough questions
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that I don't think any single person
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can say, "I will tell you
how to make all these tradeoffs."
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The understanding of
where you have transmission,
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and the fact that young people
do get infected
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and are part of the multi-generational
transmission chain,
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we should get that out.
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If you just look at the health aspect,
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we have opened up too liberally.
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Now, opening up in terms of mental health
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and seeking normal health things
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like vaccines and other care,
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there are benefits.
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I think some of our opening up
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has created more risk than benefit.
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Opening the bars up
as quickly as they did,
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is that critical for mental health?
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Maybe not.
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So I don't think we've been
as tasteful about opening up
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as I'm sure, as we study it,
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that we'll realize some things
we shouldn't have opened up as fast,
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but then you have something like school,
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where even sitting here today,
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the exact plan, say,
for inner city schools for the fall,
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I wouldn't have a black-and-white view
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on the relative tradeoffs involved there.
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There are huge benefits
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to letting those kids go to school,
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and how do you weigh the risk?
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If you're in a city
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without many cases,
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I would say probably the benefit is there.
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Now that means that
you could get surprised.
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The cases could show up,
and then you'd have to change that,
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which is not easy.
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But I think around the US
there will be places
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where that won't be a good tradeoff.
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So almost any dimension and inequity,
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this disease has made worse:
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job type, internet connection,
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ability of your school
to do online learning.
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White collar workers,
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people are embarrassed to admit it,
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some of them are more productive
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and enjoying the flexibility
that the at-home thing has created,
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and that feels terrible
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when you know lots of people
are suffering in many ways,
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including their kids not going to school.
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CA: Indeed. Let's have the next question.
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"For us in Rwanda,
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early policy interventions
have made the difference.
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At this point, what policy interventions
do you suggest for the US now?"
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Bill, I dream of the day
where you are appointed
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the coronavirus czar
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with authority to actually
speak to the public.
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What would you do?
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BG: The innovation tools
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are where I and the foundation
probably has the most expertise.
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Clearly some of the policies
on opening up have been too generous,
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but I think everybody
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could engage in that.
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We need leadership
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in terms of admitting
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that we've still got a huge problem here,
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and not turning that
into almost a political thing
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of, oh, isn't it brilliant what we did.
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No, it's not brilliant,
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but there's many people,
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including the experts,
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where there's a lot
they didn't understand,
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and everybody wishes a week earlier
whatever action they took,
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they'd taken that a week earlier.
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The innovation tools,
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that's where the foundation's work
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on antibodies, vaccines,
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we have deep expertise,
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and it's outside of the private sector,
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and so we have kind of a neutral ability
to work with all the governments
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and the companies to pick.
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Particularly when you're doing
break-even products,
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which one should get the resources.
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There's no market signal for that.
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Experts have to say, OK,
this antibody deserves the manufacturing.
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This vaccine deserves the manufacturing.
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Because, we have very limited
manufacturing for both of those things,
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and it'll be cross-company,
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which never happens in the normal case,
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where one company invents it
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and then you're using
the manufacturing plants
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of many companies
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to get maximum scale of the best choice.
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So I would be coordinating those things,
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but we need a leader
who keeps us up to date,
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is realistic,
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and shows us the right behavior,
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as well as driving the innovation track.
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CA: I mean, you have to yourself
be a master diplomat
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in how you talk about this stuff.
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So I appreciate, almost,
the discomfort here,
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but you talk regularly with Anthony Fauci,
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who is a wise voice on this
by most people's opinion.
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But to what extent is he just hamstrung?
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He's not allowed to play the full role
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that he could play in the circumstance.
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BG: Dr. Fauci has emerged,
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where he was allowed to have some airtime,
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and even though he was stating
things that are realistic,
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his prestige has stuck.
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He can speak out in that way.
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Typically, the CDC would be
the primary voice here.
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It's not absolutely necessary,
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but in previous health crises,
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you let the experts inside the CDC
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be that voice.
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They're trained to do these things,
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and so it is a bit unusual here
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how much we've had to rely on Fauci
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as opposed to the CDC.
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It should be Fauci,
who is a brilliant researcher,
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so experienced, particularly in vaccines,
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in some ways he has become,
taking the broad advice
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that is the epidemiology advice
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and explaining it in the right way,
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where he'll admit,
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"OK, we may have a rebound here,
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and this is why we need
to behave that way."
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But it's fantastic that his voice
has been allowed to come through.
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CA: Sometimes.
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Let's have the next question.
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Nina Gregory: "How are you
and your foundation
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addressing the ethical questions
about which countries
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get the vaccine first,
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assuming you find one?"
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And maybe, Bill, use this as a moment
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to just talk about where
the quest for the vaccine is
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and what are just some of the key things
we should all be thinking about
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as we track the news on this.
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BG: There's three vaccines that are,
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if they work, are the earliest:
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the Moderna, which unfortunately
won't scale very easily,
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so if that works, it'll be mostly
a US-targeted thing;
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then you have the AstraZeneca,
which comes from Oxford;
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and the Johnson & Johnson.
-
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Those are the three early ones,
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and we have animal data
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that looks potentially good,
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but not definitive,
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particularly will it work in the elderly,
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and we'll have human data
over the next several months.
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Those three will be gated by
the safety and efficacy trial.
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That is, we'll be able
to manufacture those,
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although not as much as we want.
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We'll be able to manufacture those
before the end of the year.
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Whether the Phase 3 will succeed,
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and whether it'll complete
before the end of the year,
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I wouldn't be that optimistic about.
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Phase 3 is where you need
to really look at all the safety profile
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and efficacy,
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but those will get started.
-
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And then there's four or five vaccines
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that use different approaches
-
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that are maybe three
or four months behind that:
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Novavax, Sanofi, Merck.
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And so we're funding factory capacity
for a lot of these --
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some complex negotiations
are taking place right now on this --
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to get factories that will be dedicated
to the poorer countries,
-
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what's called low- and middle-income.
-
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And the very scalable constructs
-
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that include AstraZeneca
and Johnson & Johnson,
-
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we'll focus on those,
-
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the ones that are inexpensive
-
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and you can build a single factory
to make 600 million doses.
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So a number of the vaccine constructs
-
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are potential.
-
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I don't see anything
before the end of the year.
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That's really the best case,
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and it's down to a few constructs now,
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which typically you have
high failure rates.
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CA: Bill, is the case
-
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that you and your foundation
weren't in the picture here
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that market dynamics would likely
lead to a situation
-
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where as soon as a promising
vaccine candidate emerged,
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the richer countries
would basically snap up,
-
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gobble up all available initial supply --
-
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it just takes a while
to manufacture these --
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and there would be nothing
for the poorer countries,
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but that what effectively you're doing,
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by giving manufacturing guarantees
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and capability to some
of these candidates,
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you're making it possible that
at least some of the early vaccine units
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will go to poorer countries?
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Is that correct?
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BG: Well, it's not just us, but yes,
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we're in the central role there
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along with a group we created called CEPI,
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Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness,
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and the European leaders agree with this.
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Now we have the expertise
to look at each of the constructs
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and say, OK, where is there
a factory in the world
-
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that has capacity that can build that?
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Which one should we put
the early money into?
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What should the milestones be
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where we'll shift the money
over to a different one?
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Because the kind of private sector people
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who really understand that stuff,
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some of them work for us,
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and we're a trusted party on these things,
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we get to coordinate a lot,
particularly the manufacturing piece.
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Usually, you'd expect the US
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to think of this as
a global problem and be involved.
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So far, no activity
on that front has taken place.
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I am talking to people in the Congress
and the Administration
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about when the next
relief bill comes along
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that maybe one percent of that
-
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could go for the tools
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to help the entire world.
-
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And so it's possible,
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but it's unfortunate,
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and the vacuum here
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the world is not that used to
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and a lot of people are stepping in,
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including our foundation,
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to try and have a strategy,
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including for the poorer countries
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who will suffer a high percentage
of the deaths and negative effects,
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including their health systems
being overwhelmed.
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Most of the deaths will be
in developing countries,
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despite the huge deaths we've seen
in Europe and the US.
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CA: I mean, I wish I could be
a fly on the wall and hearing
-
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you and Melinda talk about this,
-
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because of all of
the ethical crimes, let's say,
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executed by leaders
who should know better,
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I mean, it's one thing
to not model mask-wearing,
-
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but to not play a role
-
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in helping the world when faced
with a common enemy,
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respond as one humanity
-
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and instead catalyze a really unseemly
scramble between nations
-
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to fight for vaccines, for example.
-
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That just seems that surely history
is going to judge that harshly.
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That is just sickening.
-
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Isn't it? Am I missing something?
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BG: Well, it's not quite
as black and white as that.
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The US has put more money out
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to fund the basic research
on these vaccines
-
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than any country by far,
-
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and that research is not restricted.
-
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There's not, like, some royalty
that says, "Hey, if you take our money,
-
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you have to pay the US a royalty."
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They do, to the degree they fund research,
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it's for everybody.
-
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To the degree they fund factories,
it's just for the US.
-
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The thing that makes this tough is that
in every other global health problem,
-
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the US totally leads smallpox eradication,
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the US is totally the leader
on polio eradication
-
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with key partners -- CDC, WHO,
Rotary, UNICEF, our foundation.
-
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So the world, and on HIV,
-
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what under President Bush's leadership,
but it was very bipartisan,
-
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this thing called PEPFAR was unbelievable.
-
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That has saved tens of millions of lives.
-
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And so it's that the world
always expected the US
-
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to at least be at the head of the table,
-
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financially, strategy, OK, how do you
get these factories for the world,
-
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even if it's just to avoid the infection
coming back to the US
-
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or to have the global economy working,
-
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which is good for US jobs
-
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to have demand outside the US.
-
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And so the world is kind of,
there's all this uncertainty
-
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about which thing will work,
-
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and there's, OK, who is in charge here?
-
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And so the worst thing,
-
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the withdrawal from WHO,
-
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that is a difficulty
-
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that hopefully will
get remedied at some point,
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because we need that coordination
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through WHO.
-
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CA: Let's take another question.
-
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Ali Kashani: "Are there any
particularly successful models
-
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of handling the pandemic
that you have seen around the world?"
-
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BG: Well, it's fascinating that,
besides early action,
-
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there are definitely things where
you take people who have tested positive
-
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and you monitor their ??,
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which is a oxygen saturation
level in their blood,
-
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which is a very cheap detector,
-
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and then you know to get them
to the hospitals fairly early.
-
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Weirdly, patients don't know
things are about to get severe.
-
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It's an interesting physiological reason
but I won't get into.
-
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And so Germany has
a quite a low case fatality rate
-
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that they've done through
that type of monitoring.
-
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And then, of course,
once you get into facilities,
-
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we've learned that the ventilator
actually, although extremely well-meaning,
-
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was actually overused
and used in the wrong mode
-
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in those early days.
-
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So the health, the doctors
-
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are way smarter about treatment today.
-
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Most of that I would say is global.
-
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Using this ??
as an early indicator,
-
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that'll probably catch on broadly,
-
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but Germany was a pioneer there.
-
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And now, of course, dexamethasone,
-
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fortunately, it's cheap, it's oral,
-
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we can ramp up manufacture.
-
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That'll go global as well.
-
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CA: Bill, I want to ask you
-
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something about
-
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what it's been like for you personally
through this whole process.
-
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Because, weirdly, even though
your passion and good intent on this topic
-
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seems completely bloody obvious to anyone
who has spent a moment with you,
-
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there are these crazy
conspiracy theories out there about you.
-
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I just checked in
with a company called Zignal
-
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that monitors social media spaces.
-
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They say that, to date,
I think on Facebook alone,
-
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more than four million posts
have taken place
-
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that associate you with some kind
of conspiracy theory around the virus.
-
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I read that there was a poll
that more than 40 percent of Republicans
-
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believe that the vaccine
that you would roll out
-
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would somehow plant a microchip
in people to track their location.
-
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I mean, I can't even believe
that poll number.
-
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And then some people
are taking this seriously enough,
-
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and some of them have even been
recirculated on Fox News and so forth,
-
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some people are taking this
seriously enough
-
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to make really quite horrible
threats and so forth.
-
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You seem to do a good job
sort of shrugging this off,
-
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but really, like, who else
has ever been in this position?
-
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How are you managing this?
-
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What on earth world are we in
-
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that this kind of misinformation
can be out there?
-
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What can we do to help correct it?
-
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BG: I'm not sure,
-
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and it's a new thing
-
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that there's conspiracy theories.
-
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I mean, Microsoft had
its share of controversy,
-
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but at least that related
to the real world, you know?
-
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Did Windows crash more than it should?
-
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We definitely had anti-trust problems.
-
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But at least I knew what that was.
-
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When this emerged, I have to say,
-
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my instinct was to joke about it.
-
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People have said
that's really inappropriate,
-
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because this is a very serious thing.
-
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It is going to make people
less willing to take a vaccine.
-
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And, of course, once we have that vaccine,
-
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it'll be like masks,
-
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where getting lots of people,
-
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particularly when it's
a transmission-blocking vaccine,
-
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there's this huge community benefit
-
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to widespread adoption of that vaccine.
-
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So I am caught a little bit,
-
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unsure of what to say or do,
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because the conspiracy piece
is a new thing for me,
-
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and what do you say
-
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that doesn't give credence to the thing?
-
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The fact that a Fox News commentator,
-
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Laura Ingraham, was saying
this stuff about me microchipping people,
-
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that survey isn't that surprising
because that's what they heard
-
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on the TV.
-
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It's wild.
-
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And people are clearly seeking
simpler explanations
-
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than going and studying virology.
-
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CA: I mean,
-
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TED is nonpolitical,
-
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but we believe in the truth.
-
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I would say this.
-
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Laura Ingraham, you owe Bill Gates
an apology and a retraction.
-
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You do.
-
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And anyone who is watching this
-
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who thinks for a minute
-
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that this man is involved
in some kind of conspiracy,
-
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you want your head examined.
-
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You are crazy.
-
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Enough of us know Bill over many years
-
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and have seen the passion
and engagement in this to know
-
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that you are crazy.
-
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So get over it,
-
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and let's look at the actual problem
of solving this pandemic.
-
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Honestly.
-
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If anyone in the chat here
has a suggestion,
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a positive suggestion for how you can,
-
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how do you get rid of conspiracies,
because they feed on each other.
-
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Now, oh, well I would say that,
because I'm part of the conspiracy,
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or whatever.
-
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Like, how do we get back to a world
where information can be trusted?
-
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We have to do better on it.
-
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Are there any other questions
out there from the community?
-
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Aria Bendix from New York City:
-
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"What are your personal recommendations
for those who want to reduce
-
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their risk of infection
amid an uptick in cases?"
-
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BG: Well, it's great if you have a job
-
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that you can stay at your house
-
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and do it through digital meetings,
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and even some of your social activities,
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you know, I do video calls
with lots of friends.
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I have friends in Europe that
who knows when I'll see them
-
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but we schedule regular calls to talk.
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If you stay fairly isolated,
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you don't run much risk,
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and it's when you're getting together
with lots of other people,
-
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either through work or socialization,
-
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that drives that risk,
-
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and particularly in these communities
where you have increased cases,
-
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even though it's not going to be mandated,
-
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hopefully the mobility numbers
will show people responding
-
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and minimizing those kind of
out of the house contacts.
-
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CA: Bill, I wonder if I could just ask you
-
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just a little bit about philanthropy.
-
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Obviously your foundation
has played a huge role in this,
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but philanthropy more generally.
-
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You know, you've started
this giving pledge movement,
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recruited all these billionaires
-
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who have pledged to give away
half their net worth
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before or after their death.
-
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But it's really hard to do.
-
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It's really hard to give away
that much money.
-
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You yourself, I think,
-
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since the giving pledge was started,
-
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what, 10 years ago or something,
I'm not sure when,
-
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but your own net worth I think
has doubled since that period
-
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despite being the world's
leading philanthropist.
-
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Is it just fundamentally hard
-
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to give away money effectively
to make the world better?
-
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Or should the world's donors,
-
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and especially the world's
really rich donors,
-
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start to almost commit to a schedule,
-
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like, here's a percentage
of my net worth each year
-
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that as I get older,
-
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maybe that goes up.
-
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If I'm to take this seriously,
-
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I have to give away, somehow,
I've got to find a way
-
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of doing that effectively.
-
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Is that an unfair and crazy question?
-
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BG: Well, it'd be great to up the rate,
-
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and our goal, both as the Gates Foundation
or through the giving pledge,
-
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is to help people find causes
they connect to.
-
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People give through passion.
-
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Yes, numbers are important,
-
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but there's so many causes out there.
-
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The way you're going to pick
is you see somebody who is sick,
-
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you see somebody who is not
getting social services.
-
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You see something
that helps reduce racism.
-
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And you're very passionate,
and so you give to that.
-
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And, of course,
-
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some philanthropic gifts won't work out.
-
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We do need to up the ambition level
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of philanthropists.
-
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Now, collaborative philanthropy
-
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that you're helping to facilitate
through Audacious,
-
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there's four or five other groups
that are getting philanthropists together,
-
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that is fantastic,
-
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because then they learn from each other,
-
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they get confidence from each other,
-
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they feel like, hey, I put in x
-
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and the four other people put money in,
-
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so I'm getting more impact,
-
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and hopefully it can be made for them
-
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even when they find out,
-
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OK, that particular gift
didn't work out that well,
-
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but let's keep going.
-
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So philanthropy, yes,
-
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I would like to see the rate go up,
-
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and people who do get going,
-
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it is fun,
-
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it's fulfilling,
-
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you pick which of the family members
are partnered in doing it.
-
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In my case, Melinda and I
love doing this stuff together,
-
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learning together.
-
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Some families, it will even
involve the kids in the activities.
-
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Sometimes the kids are pushing.
-
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When you have lots of money,
-
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you still think of million dollars
as a lot of money,
-
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but if you have billions,
-
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you should be giving hundreds of millions.
-
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So it's kind of charming that,
in terms of your personal expenditure,
-
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you stay at the level you were at before.
-
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That's societally quite appropriate.
-
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But on your giving, you need to scale up
-
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or else it will be your will,
-
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and you won't get to shape it
and enjoy it quite that same way.
-
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And so without,
-
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we don't want to mandate it,
-
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but yes, both you and I
want to inspire philanthropists
-
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to see that passion,
-
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to see those opportunities,
-
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significantly faster than in the past,
-
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because whether it's race or disease
-
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or all the other social ills,
-
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the innovation of what philanthropy
can go to and do quickly
-
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that, if it works, government
can come in behind it and scale it up,
-
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God knows we need solutions,
-
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we need that kind of hope and progress
-
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that expectations are high
-
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that will solve very tough problems.
-
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CA: I mean, most philanthropists,
-
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even the best of them,
-
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find it hard to give away more than about
a percent of their net worth every year,
-
Not Synced
and yet the world's richest
often have access
-
Not Synced
to great investment opportunities.
-
Not Synced
Many of them are gaining wealth
at seven to 10 percent plus per year.
-
Not Synced
Isn't it the case that
to have a real chance
-
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of giving away half your fortune,
-
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at some point you have to plan
to give away five, six, seven, eight,
-
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10 percent of your net worth annually?
-
Not Synced
And that is, isn't that the logic
of what should be happening?
-
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BG: Yeah, there are people
like Chuck Feeney,
-
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who set a good example
-
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and gave away all of his money.
-
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Even Melinda and I are talking about,
-
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should we up the rate that we give at?
-
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As you say, we've been very lucky
on the investment side
-
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through a variety of things.
-
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Tech fortunes in general have done well,
-
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even this year,
-
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which is one of those great contrasts
-
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in what's going on in the world.
-
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And I do think there's an expectation
-
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that we should speed up,
-
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and there's a reason to speed up,
-
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and government is going
to miss a lot of needs.
-
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Yes, there's tons of government
money out there,
-
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but helping it be spent well,
-
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helping find places it's not stepping up,
-
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and if people are willing to give
to the developing world,
-
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they don't have governments
-
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that can print checks
for 15 percent of GDP,
-
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and so the suffering there broadly,
just the economic stuff alone,
-
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put aside the pandemic,
-
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is tragic.
-
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It's about a five year setback
-
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in terms of these countries
moving forward,
-
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and in a few cases it's tough enough
that the very stability of the country
-
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is in question.
-
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CA: Well, Bill,
-
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I'm in awe of what you
and Melinda have done.
-
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You walk this narrow path
-
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of trying to juggle
so many different things,
-
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and the amount of time that you dedicate
to the betterment of the world at large,
-
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and definitely the amount of money
-
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and the amount of passion you put into it,
-
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I mean, it's pretty awesome,
-
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and I'm really grateful to you
for spending this time with us now.
-
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Thank you so much,
-
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and honestly the rest of this year
-
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your skills and resources
are going to be needed more than ever,
-
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so good luck.
-
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BG: Well, thanks.
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It's fun work and I'm optimistic,
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so thanks, Chris.