From CNN’s Andrea Diaz
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said that even though he expects vaccine approvals to come by early next year, and see the US begin to return to normal by summer 2021, he believes we will not see the end of the pandemic until 2022.
“The end of the epidemic, best case, is probably 2022. But during 2021, the numbers, we should be able to drive them down, if we take the global approach, ” Gates said on Fox News Sunday. “So, you know, thank goodness vaccine technology was there, that the funding came up, that the companies put their best people on it. That’s why I’m optimistic this won’t last indefinitely.”
Gates also expressed his frustration with how the US has handled its approach to the pandemic.
“Unfortunately, we did a very poor job, and you could of see that in the numbers if you compare the Asian countries like South Korea and Australia,” Gates said.
Additionally, Gates noted the way testing was handled at the beginning of the pandemic, and the way is still being handled today, played a big role in the spread of the virus in the US.
“You know what happened was that 40,000 people came out of China, because we didn’t ban the residents and citizens from coming in. We created this rush. And we didn’t have the ability to test or quarantine those people, so that seeded the disease here,” Gates said. “Even today, people don’t get their results in 24 hours, which is outrageous that we still have that.”