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Bill Gates calls for nationwide shutdown

160 points by evo_9 7y ago

srge 7y ago
"Having places shut down and places not shut down is like having a peeing section in the pool." -- Fun comment on Reddit from user deafmute88
- buzzerbetrayed 7y ago
  I also saw that comment and laughed. However, I really don’t think it is a good comparison at all. It’s more just funny to think about.
  - hugs 7y ago
    How about a smoking section on an airplane or in a restaurant?
    - koolba 7y ago
      Man I miss those.
  - jerf 7y ago
    It fails to capture the exponential nature of the possible disease spread, and while disgusting, pee in the pool isn't actually dangerous, but it does get the idea across that you can't confine things where you don't have walls to confine them, which is the main point. As metaphors go, it's not terrible, since we're short on metaphors that do capture the exponential nature.
  - zackees 7y ago
    There is a readily available cure (hydroxichloriquine + antibiotic) that is extremely effective in every country it has been tried in, and has already been fast tracked approved by the FDA for this specific use. This solves the fatality issue for the small subsection of the population that is vulnerable. Yet the msm has ignored this cure. The social media networks are now engaging in censorship in private messages of this cure (personally experience). Now the only solution Bill Gates is advocating is mass vaccination of the public and a total shut down of the economy. This is REAL terrorism.
    - DanBC 7y ago
      > extremely effective in every country That has not been shown at all. We have a plausible mechanism of action, and a handful of very low quality studies showing it might work. A bunch of better quality studies are being carried out now.
gargs 7y ago
It amazes me that the rich spend their younger days talking about deregulation and the free-markets, but when there's real need to take action, they always fall back upon regulation, public investment, and centralized actions.
- celticninja 7y ago
  oh come on now, this isn't a billionaire asking for hand outs for their business this is someone who happens to be a billionaire asking for people to use common sense unfortunately it's in short supply in the US so you have to have a government mandate it.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Bill Gates doesn't have to worry about where is next meal and rent funds are going to come from. If he wanted sane government policy, he should've run for office (not to discredit the work of his foundation, he has done quite a bit of good) or funded folks to run who align with his ideals. He's not wrong! He just didn't put the effort and resources into having a role in meaningful input.
    - solarengineer 7y ago
      I've never really liked Bill Gates the Microsoft owner. However, I do appreciate what Bill Gates the philantrophist has set out to do, putting in his own money (never mind our opinions of how he made that money at MS using arm twisting techniques and such) to actually make the world a better place.
      - leggomylibro 7y ago
        I've never really liked Bill Gates the Microsoft owner, either. If you appreciate what the Gates foundation has done, consider that it's called the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
    - fennecfoxen 7y ago
Niccizero 7y ago
The whole ID2020 thing changed my opinion 180° on old Uncle Bill. Fuck him.
- celticninja 7y ago
  does that somehow invalidate what he is saying?
Ididntdothis 7y ago
I definitely feel the US is constantly behind the curve in this. After trying to downplay it for a while the administration had to accept reality but instead of taking strong measures they still do things only very reluctantly. Then on the other hand they close parks while at the same people are crowding in stores without masks or gloves.
- celticninja 7y ago
  stores in the UK are limiting the number of people allowed in at any one time, and people queuing outside have the sense to to leave gaps to allow for some social distancing in the queue
  - thsowers 7y ago
    It is the same here in many states, though I don't think a occupation limit has been imposed federally
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      I think many people will misunderstand the U.S. effort, since it's something like looking at the whole EU (but with less population density). They look at the central government and they're like "this is not enough!", when often the things they're asking for are deployed to some reasonable degree in every state.
    - celticninja 7y ago
      neither has one been imposed in the UK, it's just using common sense and also protecting their staff
  - adventured 7y ago
    And yet the UK is testing at a rate 1/2 that of the US per capita (with a max capacity of only 12,750 per day) [1]. Two weeks ago they were barely testing at all. This is in fact going on across all of Europe, very few nations are doing anything right including on the testing front. That includes supposedly good outcome nations such as Sweden, which has made a terrible mistake of not properly quarantining, and even bragging about this fact [2]; meanwhile their case numbers are surging by the day, tripling in roughly 10-12 days. It's just that people ignorantly like to target the US with abuse because it feels good, while pretending everything is going swimmingly elsewhere (it's not). They count on Americans not following the news of the disaster that's still unfolding across Europe. There are a handful of nations doing kinda-sorta well in Europe and that's it. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-testing/uk-to-speed-up-coronavirus-testing-as-criticism-grows-idUSKBN21J4ET https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britai... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-27/coronavirus-want-to-escape-a-lockdown-try-sweden https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-27/corona... > “I’m deeply concerned,” virology professor Fredrik Elgh told state broadcaster SVT. Epidemiologist Joacim Rocklov told the FT it was “a huge experiment” that could go “crazily” wrong. Mathematician Marcus Carlsson, less politely, said it amounted to “Russian roulette.”
mmm_grayons 7y ago
Mr. Gates is already rich and insulated from a likely downturn. It's important to balance the welfare of Americans with their financial welfare, and we can't just borrow our way out of the economic fallout that a months-long shutdown would produce. Edit: ITT people saying I want to sacrifice 2 million for the economy. I didn't say remove all preventative measures, I said we need to balance. I'd guess this looks something like a production possibilities frontier graph: we'll be sacrificing a lot of economy to get a little more health past a certain point, and vice-versa. It's the job of lawmen to strike that balance.
- celticninja 7y ago
  I think you will be surprised that you can borrow your way out of it. what do you think is going to happen, humans are going to survive coronavirus only to be killed because the economy is no longer functioning? the market is there for the benefit of humans not the other way round.
  - mmm_grayons 7y ago
    Okay, fair points. Here are some of the issues I see with that. You have two options, borrow or print, right? If you borrow, you pay it back. If you print, you don't, but your citizens absorb a serious financial blow. So let's say we don't want to ruin the savings of Americans, so we borrow. Who lends? As of Dec. 2019, 74% of our debt was held by the public [0]. Odds are on that Americans fleeing to financial security would buy the better part of new debt issued, too. So, you've kicked the can for 10 years; now it's time to pay back. Where do we get the money now? If you cancel it, you're destroying the retirements of millions of Americans, not just hurting some abstract entity of "the Market". Remember that a large number of people feel the effects of a market downturn, even if through a retirement account or pension plan. So, to avoid retirees eating dog food, you now have to pay back. How do you propose to do this, given we already have a truly colossal $23.6 trillion in debt? [0]: https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124 https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-33...
    - 7y ago
claudeganon 7y ago
Unless they’re going to scale up grocery delivery or contactless pickups, I’m not sure it’s going to matter. I had to pick up a prescription yesterday and everyone was mad rushing and hanging out at the store because nothing else is open. Never seen the parking lot that full and this was in the middle of the day, well into a lockdown.
- celticninja 7y ago
  shut down or lockdown generally means you can't leave unless you have a good reason such as getting food or medicine it doesn't mean nobody can leave the house ever without the express permission of the government
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    I understand full well what it means, but if you have no limits on how these stores operate and everyone congregating at them, you’re undercutting a lot of your response. See also how businesses are skirting the limits and lobbying behind the scenes about essential vs non-essential work.
    - xur17 7y ago
      I've been surprised by the number of businesses that are classified as "essential". I have a friend that works for a place that is essential, so she still went to the office a few times a week despite being fully able to work remotely.
    - celticninja 7y ago
      at first anything like this has to be done with the cooperation of everybody involved, there are not enough police to enforce something like this. in general most people will operate sensibly, but of course you might get some companies that are still going to try and make that money and will risk their employees and customers for it. some people are selfish assholes
Apreche 7y ago
Bill Gates. Maybe you should bribe congress the same way that right wing scumbags like Koch and Adelson do. Tell them to give us universal health care, impeach Trump, etc. You could also buy FOX News and shut it down. With great power comes great responsibility. You have enough money and power to fix the world, and you only use a mere fraction of it. Sure you got enough Porches in your garage, though.
- celticninja 7y ago
  what are you talking about the users a vast proportions as well to try and change and fix the world, yes you could lobby for changes in the United States but on the grand scale of things US citizens are not that badly off even with your privatised healthcare system, so he tries to help less-developed Nations and their citizens and you're complaining that she hasn't done enough for you.
jswizzy 7y ago
He also said the web wasn't worth investing in. Genius.
- celticninja 7y ago
  he also is one of the richest people in the world. genius. neither of which or invalidate is opinion on the shutdown. however the second one means that his opinion is broadcast by the media, he is not the only one that holds this opinion
throwaway040120 7y ago
I'm not impressed by Gate's OpEd. Nothing about making the social changes necessary to keep functioning the way places like Korea have been able to. No mention of Facemasks. All he says is that we should shut everything down for months, test more, and make a vaccine. If you look at his suggestions from a month ago[1] they seemed to be mainly to help poor countries and fast track vaccines. Just a month ago he was completely blind to how much of a problem this would be for wealthy countries, and how weak their response to it was. [1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19 https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19
- celticninja 7y ago
  a shutdown will help with initial prevention of transmission, once that has been achieved you can end the shutdown but you will still need people to wear masks to prevent a secondary flare up. in places such as Korea, wearing a mask is common anyway so changing that behaviour is not necessary. you try getting America to adopt facemasks overnight and it will likely fail, it will take weeks before you see any fall in infections relying solely on the adoption of face masks.
  - throwaway040120 7y ago
    Evidence suggest that masks will slow the spread right now, and every day we wait on this is another day we're not doing everything we can to stop the spread.
    - celticninja 7y ago
      I don't disagree I'm saying that getting people to wear masks is going to be hard. a shutdown removes the reason for leaving the house. if there was no shutdown people would still go out, some in masks and many without, this would mean transmission would continue and so would pressure on health care services. you would flatten the curve but A) at a higher point and B) extend the length of the plateau, instead of seeing the descent
      - 7y ago
ceilingcorner 7y ago
Is Bill Gates an elected official? Is he a medical doctor? Sorry, I understand that he means well, but we need more democratic engagement and less opinions from billionaire industrialists.
- Havoc 7y ago
  He played a big part in polio eradication efforts. I’d say he has some credibility to speak on this
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Did he do more in that effort than play the role of the big wallet?
    - mbreese 7y ago
      When you spend that kind of money on an effort, you don't just write a check and forget about it. He's been known to be very hands on in his global healthcare efforts.
      - catalogia 7y ago
        It's not like he's been to medical school, or has he? So far all I've seen, including your comment, boils down to "Trust him, he's rich."
        mbreese 7y ago
        It's not "he's rich". It's that he has been actively engaged with all the research programs that he's funded. Global health philanthropy has been his primary job for over a decade. When you're working with experts in the field for that long, you do learn a thing or two. Seriously, you're picking the wrong argument here. Now, if Gates had started talking about rainforest conservation efforts in South America (random topic), he'd have little authority. But on this specific topic, he does.
tathougies 7y ago
I doubt Mr Gates has been to most of the country or is really capable of understanding he people who live there
- djsumdog 7y ago
  Very true. This idea is an extreme measure and there are costs that are outside the virus, costs that could cost more lives: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-diseases/ https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease...
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Right. And a lot of the middle of the country 'flyover states', are incredibly rural and already enact social distancing. They are currently not as affected. People think the United States is one homogenous entity, and that if New York City is endangered, the entire country is. Nothing can be further from the truth. New York City is 1400 miles from Oklahoma City. To put that in perspective, if a simultaneous lockdown of the entire United States is warranted based on an outbreak in New York City, then a lockdown of Mo i Rana Norway is warranted due to the spread in Lombardy. Or, being 3800 miles away, locking down Nome, AK because of New York, is like locking down Darwin Australia in December due to the outbreak in Wuhan. In other words, the distances make these suggestions absolutely ridiculous. In reality, the virus takes time to spread over land, and the US has a lot of empty land. Lockdowns will need to happen in the interior to flatten the curve, but only after the virus starts to manifest there. The goal with lockdown is to not overwhelm the healthcare system while simultaneously insuring enough people get it to ensure herd immunity. Interior states should encourage people to prepare and suggest those especially at risk to limit interactions. For the most part they are. As they become more affected, they should institute a lockdown at the latest possible moment they can to avoid an overwhelmed healthcare system. In the meantime, they should take advantage of their working economy to prepare. The rest of the country benefits from the continued industry of the middle states while they are in lockdown. When it comes time for us to open back up, and them to start lockdown, we should return the favor, by maintaining some semblance of our economy
__s 7y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how-to-make-up-for-lost-time-on-covid-19/2020/03/31/ab5c3cf2-738c-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how... would be the better link, no?
- hackonr 7y ago
  Paywall, no?
  - kick 7y ago
    A paywall that's painless to circumvent.
  - __s 7y ago
    > The Washington Post is providing this story for free so that all readers have access to this important information about the coronavirus. For more free stories, sign up for our daily Coronavirus Updates newsletter.
omani 7y ago
why the hell is this guy even talking? who cares about bill gates and his opinion. leave us alone bill.
- celticninja 7y ago
  maybe your question should be why the media broadcasting his opinion? you are directing your hatred at him but he didn't put his opinion in front of you, he didn't ask you to care about it. stop letting the media push you about.
verytrivial 7y ago
> "Private companies can’t take that kind of risk, but the federal government can. It’s a great sign that the administration made deals this week with at least two companies to prepare for vaccine manufacturing. I hope more deals will follow," he added. I assume this is Gates trying to bait Trump and his handlers into making this all a 'Greatest deal in the world!' ego massage for the one person both legally capable yet emotionally incapable of acting.
chrisco255 7y ago
This is ignorant. The country is the size of a continent. Each subregion should be managed based on current and developing conditions, density of population, weather conditions, etc. Some states have zero deaths, presently and only a few dozen cases. Even China didn't shut down the whole country. Masks and fever checks along with testing should be enough to slow the spread without triggering Great Depression 2.
- celticninja 7y ago
  China didn't shut down the entire country does not give us any information on spread of the disease in China. if you are buying the Chinese figures for infections and deaths then I have a bridge to sell you.
  - gnulinux 7y ago
    I'm so sick and tired of this conspiracy theory going all around reddit. Do we have any reason to disbelieve China's numbers are orders of magnitudes wrong? China's numbers are wrong in the same way Italy and USA's numbers are wrong, because data collection is flawed. It is also very plausible to claim China has incentive to hide new infections in their country. Even US has incentive to have this to minimize the panic. But claiming a country with 1.3 billion people, who recently accepted WHO to audit their pandemic management has a massive epidemic when they're reporting almost no new patients is "US didn't go to the moon" level conspiracy theory. Please put your tin foil hat away.
    - drtillberg 7y ago
      Studies have suggested that something like 80% of Covid-19 infections in China were not reported. In addition, recently there was credible reporting concerning the numbers of cremation urns released post-lockdown. I don't think it's reasonable to talk "tin foil hat". I do think it's reasonable to continue to seek factual answers to important questions.
    - celticninja 7y ago
      yes we do have reason to disbelieve [0] [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-residents-say-chinese-government-coronavirus-death-toll-is-low-2020-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-residents-say-chinese-...
tinyhouse 7y ago
He has a point. People in shutdown states/cities try to "escape" to other places that don't have a shutdown yet. States with very few cases might feel safe but it's shown already that acting early is best.
treis 7y ago
I'm tired of the "shutdown everything" acting like the underpants gnomes. Gates argues for a 10 week or more shutdown and then says we are ~18 months from a vaccine. If we are 18 months from the definitive solution shutting down for 10 weeks doesn't solve much. Sure, it might knock the infection load back down to what it was in late January. But then 2-3 months later we will be right back where we are now. What's the plan then? Another 10+ week shut down? Covid-19 is with us for the foreseeable future and we have to figure out how to live a normal life with it. The effort should be focused on getting us to that place. Ubiquitous masks, temperature checks at public places like work, stores, etc. and a culture shift to stay home when you're sick.
- dragontamer 7y ago
  > I'm tired of the "shutdown everything" acting like the underpants gnomes. Gates argues for a 10 week or more shutdown and then says we are ~18 months from a vaccine. If we are 18 months from the definitive solution shutting down for 10 weeks doesn't solve much. We're a few weeks away from mass-testing in the USA. By shutting down for a few weeks, we will at least give time for test-kit manufacturers to mass produce test kits and get our health-policy experts ahead of the curve on this. For now, the US has the steepest exponential rise in the world and some of the fewest test-kits per capita. It seems like our citizens are not taking the lockdown seriously, and the disease continues to spread far faster than it really should be. ---------- This isn't about "winning against the disease" anymore. Its about stalling for time so that our nurses have enough N95 masks to be safe while treating people again. We're out of supplies. The nationwide stockpile of masks is depleted. Hospitals are running out of equipment. Stalling for a few weeks will help significantly.
  - treis 7y ago
    >We're a few weeks away from mass-testing in the USA. Mass-testing isn't a panacea and is only one piece of the puzzle. We can be implementing the other pieces while our testing capability continues to ramp up. >This isn't about "winning against the disease" anymore. Its about stalling for time so that our nurses have enough N95 masks to be safe while treating people again. Barring some manufacturing miracle we won't have enough disposable N95 masks for a long time. There are plenty of reusable N95 or better masks stockpiled around the country to provide one to every health care worker. We just haven't made a national decision to do that. >We're out of supplies. The nationwide stockpile of masks is depleted. Hospitals are running out of equipment. Stalling for a few weeks will help significantly. It's wishful thinking that a few weeks are going to change anything. We will have pretty much the same tools that we do now to fight the disease. The change that is needed is to make use of what we have.
de_watcher 7y ago
More like you need to turn it off and on again.
howmayiannoyyou 7y ago
A $19 trillion dollar economy is largely shut down to protect - mostly but not entirely - those 65 and older. That's fine, but let's be direct about it. We're sacrificing our doctors, nurses, jobs, national security and much more for our aged and elderly. I'm not saying this is wrong. I'm not saying we should do differently. I really just want to see is clearly stated in this thread.
- lm28469 7y ago
  How many times will this have to be repeated: not doing anything will cause more people to die because of overcrowded hospitals, health workers would be even more stressed and people under 65 would die of unrelated health issues due to lack of beds and available health worker. People will be sick, sick people can't work (dead people too), the economy would tank either way. This isn't on on/off switch: "let the old die and keep 100% of the economy" VS "try to save the old and destroy the economy"
  - logicchains 7y ago
    >the economy would tank either way. If we look at the Spanish flu, the economy recovered pretty well after that, although the war also ended which may have had something to do with it. Look at it this way: even if 20% of people are really sick and can't work, that's still 80% of people working, which is way more than the near 0% of people working if there's a complete lockdown. And even in the worse case of 2% of the population dying (and all being working age; in practice we'd expect most to be retirees), that would on average reduce GDP by 2%, which is way less than it's predicted to fall if there's a 2+ month long complete shutdown. What about if people panic and stop shopping / going to bars, restaurants etc? Well clearly there's still a non-insignificant proportion of people interested in patronising those businesses even with the virus around, otherwise lockdown measures wouldn't be necessary because everyone would be staying at home anyway.
    - mantas 7y ago
      20% are sick and can't work. Then a good chunk of other 80% are not needed because a good chunk of customers are gone. Then quite a bit of people are scared of getting virus, ain't in the mood because of their relatives dying and/or economic situation and don't consume. Demand goes even lower. More people loose their jobs and demand goes even lower. And the spiral continues. Bars and restaurants are great for spreading the virus. Once people learn it the hard way, remaining people won't go there that much. In my country patronising of bars and restaurants fell down the cliff in a couple days mid-march. Closing them down due to quarantine was just a formality in many cases. Sure, some people would still go. But they wouldn't have enough traffic to cover fixed costs.
drtillberg 7y ago
This Gates dude has a 66,000 sq/ft house. Easy for him to say that everyone should just stay at home with no access to public parks and beaches. And he has a private waterfront. For the rest of us, there's no no scientific study that says staying 24hrs/day in our little hovels is more healthful than occasionally walking and enjoying public amenities while maintaining appropriate physical separation from others.
- twox2 7y ago
  No one is saying you shouldn't take the occasional walk while maintaining physical separation, in fact, that's what's being encouraged here. The reality is that the physical separation part needs to be enforced across the country in order to make a dent.
  - drtillberg 7y ago
    The article referenced a closure of beaches. New York recently closed "parks." This is counterproductive. People need spaces in order to be socially distant. If you close all the spaces, they will not be distant.
    - twox2 7y ago
      This is not counterproductive. People have been mobbing the parks. The parks need to be closed. I live in Brooklyn and the groups I've been seeing until VERY recently are disturbing. When you close the parks, there's no where for groups of people to hang out. Need to go on a walk? Sure go on a walk and stay away from people. Not everyone needs to be on the street at the same time either. The reality is that in a densely populated city, parks or not, you can't find the distance unless you go out early morning or late at night and stay off the beaten path.
  - Mediterraneo10 7y ago
    > No one is saying you shouldn't take the occasional walk while maintaining physical separation, in fact, that's what's being encouraged here. It depends where. There are countries on lockdown where you are not allowed to go more than 100 m from your home even for exercise. If you live on a street consisting of blocks, then that means there are so many people at a time who would want to do their exercise, that you couldn't really maintain physical separation. Consequently, the authorities expect everyone to stay at home and e.g. buy an exercise bike. Also note that China’s approach in Wuhan was that no one may leave their housing block.
djsumdog 7y ago
This is an unprecedented measure. I can understand the need to do everything possible, but there are other costs. Shutting down rural areas could shut down food supplies, which we're already seeing with seasonal fruit pickers in Europe. COVID-19 becomes critical in people because their immune system overacts and ends up hurting living cells. If they recover, it's just some dead bloodcells and they can be replaced. When our society starts overrating with out social immune system, people die. I wrote about this hidden cost last week: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-diseases/ https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease...
- cowpig 7y ago
  This is dangerously false (we don't yet know what the long-term effects of COVID-19 will be). How do I flag this for moderator removal?
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    Did you read the article? It's my blog post. I wrote it. Instead of just saying it's dangerously false, explain why. Let's have a discussion instead if you jumping the flag button. There are already cases in Europe where fruit is rotting because no one is available to pick it. If the country shuts down like Gates suggest, there are lots of secondary effects that can injure people. It's just like COVID-19, in someone's immune system, overreacting and killing more cells when it doesn't need to. That should not be acceptable in our society.
    - cowpig 7y ago
      There's no evidence to suggest that people who recover from COVID-19 have "only dead blood cells" that can "just be replaced". There is a bunch of evidence that it can cause scarring in peoples' lungs, and it's unclear what other long-term effects there will be.
      - djsumdog 7y ago
        That wasn't what I was implying at all!! In your immune system, it can kill off bad cells and that's acceptable. But when it comes to human beings, we can't let some people die to save the rest. That's unacceptable. That's the analogy I was trying to draw. Human beings are not cogs in a machines. We are not cells who some master brain can dictate things to. We are complex, self-aware beings. You turn off a machine and you can turn it back on again later. Your body kills off a ton of infected cells and that's fine because they grow back and those cells aren't special. Your turn off large parts of this complex machine we've constructed to support 6~7 billion human beings on this planet, and a lot of people are going to die. Even if you can keep people from dying, there is going to be a lot of civil unrest, protests, because there are limits of what we can take as human beings. The point of the post is that there are two diseases. The first is the virus that's killing of tens of thousands of people. Then the second disease will hit; the economic impact of all we are doing to stop the disease, which could leave millions without necessities.
iso1631 7y ago
The bill to implement it would have to be called the "START" Bill.
knocte 7y ago
Bill Gates for president!
- knocte 7y ago
  downvoters: relax! it's April's fools day
glitchc 7y ago
Bill Gates should stick to writing software that works, instead of preaching destruction of the economy /s
bg117 7y ago
Nations need to have a soul but companies need not. Health is wealth and sometimes, life is more valuable than dollars.
Simulacra 7y ago
Is Bill willing to pay for it? I really don't want to see anything from the mega billionaires right now other than zeros on the checks they are giving to charity, government, and people.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat... > As of 2018, Bill and Melinda Gates had donated around $36 billion to the foundation. Yes, he is.
  - Simulacra 7y ago
    "As of 2018..donated around $36 billion to the foundation.." You mean Bill's foundation? How about as of April 1st, 2020 how much as Bill and Melinda given in billions separate from their foundation? Is there something more...current you can find?
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      You've moved the goalposts so far we're playing a different sport. I know March 2020 seemed like a decade, but 2018 is a pretty recent number, and $36B is a pretty big number even if it's two years old.
      - Simulacra 7y ago
        No, someone pulled up something from 2018. You may not have noticed but things are considerably different between 2018 and right now. We’re in a totally different world. Did you find something a little more current?
      - Simulacra 7y ago
        Forgive me for second commenting, but I missed one salient point: the genesis of this discussion is that Bill Gates would like the entire economy to shut down. My argument is that gates should instead be looking to inject significantly more cash separate from his foundation, directly into our economy, before he starts demanding the economy shut down.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pcr910303 7y ago
Sorry, I'm not really aware about the situation of COVID-19 in the US, is it that serious so that there are shutdown opinions? What is the current status in the US? Big clusters or unprecedented outbreaks can be controlled with mass/rapid testing and selective quarantine - is the US's situation that bad to all-stop the economy?
- twox2 7y ago
  Mass/rapid testing is not a thing here due to gross incompetence at a federal level. Some regions are outliers and have been able to ramp up on their own.
csomar 7y ago
I live in a country going through the second week of Shutdown. This is simply stupid and irresponsible. Unlike China which had a limited regional shutdown and where the government controlled lots of everyday life; most of the other countries are running with the private sector. A 3-4 months shutdown is going to bankrupt pretty much everyone. Those who were running thin but also those who were saving a bit. Unless you have a 1 year expenses upfront and probably own your house in your name, you are going bankrupt and will be relying on the government for help. Next we are going to see massive disruption for pretty much everything and every consumer good. This is a good opportunity for government intervention and for government (or Big Co) to own pretty much everything. The virus might kill 100k in the US (or millions) let's just assume that cost and prepare for a future outbreak.
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  Virus is going to kill 1m in the US no matter what, even if every single person had a dedicated ICU [1]. People who can't emotionally accept that shouldn't partake in the discussion, because that's table-stakes. [1]. https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/77482/5/Imperial%20College%20COVID19%20NPI%20modelling%2016-03-2020.pdf https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/77482/5/Impe...
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    > Neil M Ferguson You do realize this guy, the first guy listed in the paper, originally said the UK would loose 400,000 and the US 2 million no matter what. Now he's saying 20k for the US, but he's still trying to tell us his original estimate wasn't wrong, it was just assuming people did nothing, which is not what his original estimate said at all! None of his estimates have matched the numbers so far, not even in Italy. Ferguson and his other researchers are spreading bad and dangerous information.
    - votepaunchy 7y ago
      > Now he's saying 20k for the US Whatever numbers can be believed, the US is already over 4000 deaths at 900+/day.
ddebernardy 7y ago
As the saying goes, you can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility. (Not by Churchill [1].) Plus, it's not a given that it is the right thing to do, especially if there's no plan for what comes after; and there reportedly are early signs of social unrest on this side of the pond [2]. A shutdown can't last until there's a vaccine. At best it buys you time. [1]: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternative... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/singing-stops-italy-fear-social-unrest-mount-coronavirus-lockdown https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/singing-stops-...
- balladeer 7y ago
  > At best it buys you time. That's the very point. It takes some (or a lot of) burden off the health infra. Lockdown is being done in many countries so that not everybody will need hospitalisation at the same time.
  - ddebernardy 7y ago
    Sure, but for how long will it remain sustainable? The lockdown hasn't lasted a month in Italy and they're already seeing early signs of food theft that could potentially degenerate into food riots. I'm struggling to imagine how any country will make it sustainable for more than a month or two. Yet on paper, a prerequisite for stopping the lockdown seems to be that you've been testing on a fairly large scale, which only Korea seems to have pulled off. The situation in France, for instance, is unenviable at the moment and absolutely not sustainable: albeit to a lesser degree as in the US, there's not enough PPE for essential staff, not enough masks for everyone else, and most crucially not enough tests to go about. Yet there's a full lockdown with fines and all, and insofar as I'm aware there isn't enough financial help for employers or employees or the self-employed or anyone else. It's only a matter of time before everyone realizes that they're going into this like it's 1914, expecting it'll all be over by the autumn. It won't. It won't, because of asymptomatic cases and because the virus is spreading in developing countries. Rich countries won't want to shell out the trillions that might be needed so the latter can cope with the situation. (And that will translate into yet another migration crisis to boot. Etc. Etc.) For better or worse, the current lockdown measures in a growing number of countries are only postponing the inevitable mass outbreak by a few weeks. That is, unless countries get their act together and find a huge pot of money to tap into -- and in periods with a collapsing economy, the only sane pot of money to tap into is wealth. I'm not holding my breath.
erex78 7y ago
The ads on this page are ridiculous. Here’s a link to the actual op-ed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how-to-make-up-for-lost-time-on-covid-19/2020/03/31/ab5c3cf2-738c-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how...
motohagiography 7y ago
"We can start now by building the facilities where these vaccines will be made," Gates wrote. "Because many of the top candidates are made using unique equipment, we’ll have to build facilities for each of them, knowing that some won’t get used." "Private companies can’t take that kind of risk, but the federal government can. It’s a great sign that the administration made deals this week with at least two companies to prepare for vaccine manufacturing. I hope more deals will follow," he added. Arguably, this is precisely the kind of risk that venture capital and startups take every day. Yes, government needs to co-ordinate funding for this and execute where it can. Anything that helps them is great. However, if someone wants to put $10 million (total of large seed rounds or a small A) into building these facilities as well, open it up, as there is a huge amount of cash sitting on the sidelines right now, and if a small team can get these built, it's worth examining the potential.
StillBored 7y ago
Easy for Bill Gates, he won't be standing in the food lines in 12 months when the result of this shutdown starts to really hit home. We are going to look back on this as a huge mistake. Its one thing if 50% of the population dies and your trying to save them. Its another thing when its somewhere around 2%, which is roughly the yearly death toll, which means about 2x the number of people who were going to die this year are going to die.
- r00fus 7y ago
  Wouldn't it be the original death toll + 2%? Ie, double the death total for the year? That sounds like a BFD to me. Not to mention the rest of the deaths that will happen due to the medical system being overloaded after free-transmission period took place.
calibas 7y ago
Bill Gates' meddling is a big part of what got us into this mess. He's practically bought out the WHO, here's some good reading on that: https://www.politico.eu/article/bill-gates-who-most-powerful-doctor/ https://www.politico.eu/article/bill-gates-who-most-powerful... So we have a weak WHO that people are manipulating for their personal goals, altruistic or not. Then there's this outbreak in China, and the WHO just completely screwed up every opportunity to contain the thing. They went right along with the Chinese government and announced no evidence of human to human transmission (their travel advisory said if you go to Wuhan you should wash your hands). Now in my opinion the WHO should be tearing into the Chinese government for an apparent coverup and allowing the virus to spread internationally. Instead Tedros, WHO head and Bill Gates connection, is praising China.
Overtonwindow 7y ago
I disagree here. I don’t think a total shut down of the economy is necessary, and I would like to see the nations billionaires stepping up with more cold hard cash. I appreciate what Bill and Melinda have done through their foundation, but I’m a little suspicious. I guess I just like to see more from him then shut down the economy and everybody stay home in our mansions… I mean homes.
thewindowmovie 7y ago
US seems to be going through different stages of denial. First it was that only Chinese will spread the disease. Then it was dismissed as mere flu. Now they seem to have acknowledged the severity of the situation. It is disheartening to read in this thread some comment taking the human life so lightly. Is not that the US going to support those going through unemployment with cheques and other benefits? Is it not more important for the people to be healthy so that the economy can be restarted once all this is over? It is depressing to read the comments from citizens of the wealthiest country in the world.
- dingaling 7y ago
  It's not necessarily that people are taking human life lightly, just that priorities may not be the same for everyone. In the UK we've already had cancer patients who have died because their treatment was cancelled to free-up hospitals for COVID patients. Nine murders have been attributed to people not being able to cope with lockdown in their own homes. Why are the lives of ( primarily ) old people with comorbidities considered of higher priority than them? Pragmatically one could argue that economically and socially it would be fairer to just let people who contract COVID die. But politics intervenes and forbids that.
  - gitrog 7y ago
    > Pragmatically one could argue that economically and socially it would be fairer to just let people who contract COVID die. But politics intervenes and forbids that. Really? And what if two thirds of the world contracted it and ~3% of those died. I ask you to provide your own proof, models or what not, that letting this virus run rampant won't have equally or even more disastrous affects economically and socially.
iso1631 7y ago
Interesting fact 27% of the Senate are over 70, 66% over 60. This disease almost exclusively affects people over 60.
- timbit42 7y ago
  It affects people with particular underlying medical conditions more than those who are older. It's just that those who are older tend to have more underlying medical conditions, but any young person with particular underlying medical conditions is at greater risk than a 99 year old with no underlying medical conditions. I saw yesterday a healthy 99 year old survived it.
nojvek 7y ago
Ideally if we closed off the borders early to non-citizens + temporary residents, we’d be in an entirely different situation. The administration did things half-assed. At the first notice of the virus, Trump was in denial. The first case was on Jan 20th. After 40 days they were still downplaying it saying it will go to zero. The borders and airports were where it would spread. Ideally every incoming passenger would have been tested. Every single one. The other way would be to lock down hotspots. Like China locked out Wuhan from rest of country. However in US many things are just hard to achieve since we are a democracy. US most likely will have more deaths than other countries, mostly because we have third highest population. China and India seem somewhat competent. I guess time will tell.
RickJWagner 7y ago
.... and just yesterday HN had an NPR article explaining that Germany is doing so much better because they have local regions that can make autonomous decisions, unencumbered by a one-size fits all mandate. There are lots of opinions on how to fight coronavirus. It's hard to tell which ones are right. // Yesterday's contradictory words of wisdom https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/820595489/why-germanys-coronavirus-death-rate-is-far-lower-than-in-other-countries https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/820595489/why-germanys-corona...
cbiimport 7y ago
Way we still open for .? All state must shutdown for the safety of the people . What we waiting for .? To see thousands of people dying .!!

160 points by evo_9 7y ago

srge 7y ago

"Having places shut down and places not shut down is like having a peeing section in the pool." -- Fun comment on Reddit from user deafmute88

buzzerbetrayed 7y ago
I also saw that comment and laughed. However, I really don’t think it is a good comparison at all. It’s more just funny to think about.
- hugs 7y ago
  How about a smoking section on an airplane or in a restaurant?
  - koolba 7y ago
    Man I miss those.
- jerf 7y ago
  It fails to capture the exponential nature of the possible disease spread, and while disgusting, pee in the pool isn't actually dangerous, but it does get the idea across that you can't confine things where you don't have walls to confine them, which is the main point. As metaphors go, it's not terrible, since we're short on metaphors that do capture the exponential nature.
- zackees 7y ago
  There is a readily available cure (hydroxichloriquine + antibiotic) that is extremely effective in every country it has been tried in, and has already been fast tracked approved by the FDA for this specific use. This solves the fatality issue for the small subsection of the population that is vulnerable. Yet the msm has ignored this cure. The social media networks are now engaging in censorship in private messages of this cure (personally experience). Now the only solution Bill Gates is advocating is mass vaccination of the public and a total shut down of the economy. This is REAL terrorism.
  - DanBC 7y ago
    > extremely effective in every country That has not been shown at all. We have a plausible mechanism of action, and a handful of very low quality studies showing it might work. A bunch of better quality studies are being carried out now.

gargs 7y ago

It amazes me that the rich spend their younger days talking about deregulation and the free-markets, but when there's real need to take action, they always fall back upon regulation, public investment, and centralized actions.

celticninja 7y ago
oh come on now, this isn't a billionaire asking for hand outs for their business this is someone who happens to be a billionaire asking for people to use common sense unfortunately it's in short supply in the US so you have to have a government mandate it.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Bill Gates doesn't have to worry about where is next meal and rent funds are going to come from. If he wanted sane government policy, he should've run for office (not to discredit the work of his foundation, he has done quite a bit of good) or funded folks to run who align with his ideals. He's not wrong! He just didn't put the effort and resources into having a role in meaningful input.
  - solarengineer 7y ago
    I've never really liked Bill Gates the Microsoft owner. However, I do appreciate what Bill Gates the philantrophist has set out to do, putting in his own money (never mind our opinions of how he made that money at MS using arm twisting techniques and such) to actually make the world a better place.
    - leggomylibro 7y ago
      I've never really liked Bill Gates the Microsoft owner, either. If you appreciate what the Gates foundation has done, consider that it's called the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
  - fennecfoxen 7y ago

Niccizero 7y ago

The whole ID2020 thing changed my opinion 180° on old Uncle Bill. Fuck him.

celticninja 7y ago
does that somehow invalidate what he is saying?

Ididntdothis 7y ago

I definitely feel the US is constantly behind the curve in this. After trying to downplay it for a while the administration had to accept reality but instead of taking strong measures they still do things only very reluctantly. Then on the other hand they close parks while at the same people are crowding in stores without masks or gloves.

celticninja 7y ago
stores in the UK are limiting the number of people allowed in at any one time, and people queuing outside have the sense to to leave gaps to allow for some social distancing in the queue
- thsowers 7y ago
  It is the same here in many states, though I don't think a occupation limit has been imposed federally
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    I think many people will misunderstand the U.S. effort, since it's something like looking at the whole EU (but with less population density). They look at the central government and they're like "this is not enough!", when often the things they're asking for are deployed to some reasonable degree in every state.
  - celticninja 7y ago
    neither has one been imposed in the UK, it's just using common sense and also protecting their staff
- adventured 7y ago
  And yet the UK is testing at a rate 1/2 that of the US per capita (with a max capacity of only 12,750 per day) [1]. Two weeks ago they were barely testing at all. This is in fact going on across all of Europe, very few nations are doing anything right including on the testing front. That includes supposedly good outcome nations such as Sweden, which has made a terrible mistake of not properly quarantining, and even bragging about this fact [2]; meanwhile their case numbers are surging by the day, tripling in roughly 10-12 days. It's just that people ignorantly like to target the US with abuse because it feels good, while pretending everything is going swimmingly elsewhere (it's not). They count on Americans not following the news of the disaster that's still unfolding across Europe. There are a handful of nations doing kinda-sorta well in Europe and that's it. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-testing/uk-to-speed-up-coronavirus-testing-as-criticism-grows-idUSKBN21J4ET https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britai... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-27/coronavirus-want-to-escape-a-lockdown-try-sweden https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-27/corona... > “I’m deeply concerned,” virology professor Fredrik Elgh told state broadcaster SVT. Epidemiologist Joacim Rocklov told the FT it was “a huge experiment” that could go “crazily” wrong. Mathematician Marcus Carlsson, less politely, said it amounted to “Russian roulette.”

mmm_grayons 7y ago

Mr. Gates is already rich and insulated from a likely downturn. It's important to balance the welfare of Americans with their financial welfare, and we can't just borrow our way out of the economic fallout that a months-long shutdown would produce. Edit: ITT people saying I want to sacrifice 2 million for the economy. I didn't say remove all preventative measures, I said we need to balance. I'd guess this looks something like a production possibilities frontier graph: we'll be sacrificing a lot of economy to get a little more health past a certain point, and vice-versa. It's the job of lawmen to strike that balance.

celticninja 7y ago
I think you will be surprised that you can borrow your way out of it. what do you think is going to happen, humans are going to survive coronavirus only to be killed because the economy is no longer functioning? the market is there for the benefit of humans not the other way round.
- mmm_grayons 7y ago
  Okay, fair points. Here are some of the issues I see with that. You have two options, borrow or print, right? If you borrow, you pay it back. If you print, you don't, but your citizens absorb a serious financial blow. So let's say we don't want to ruin the savings of Americans, so we borrow. Who lends? As of Dec. 2019, 74% of our debt was held by the public [0]. Odds are on that Americans fleeing to financial security would buy the better part of new debt issued, too. So, you've kicked the can for 10 years; now it's time to pay back. Where do we get the money now? If you cancel it, you're destroying the retirements of millions of Americans, not just hurting some abstract entity of "the Market". Remember that a large number of people feel the effects of a market downturn, even if through a retirement account or pension plan. So, to avoid retirees eating dog food, you now have to pay back. How do you propose to do this, given we already have a truly colossal $23.6 trillion in debt? [0]: https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124 https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-33...
  - 7y ago

claudeganon 7y ago

Unless they’re going to scale up grocery delivery or contactless pickups, I’m not sure it’s going to matter. I had to pick up a prescription yesterday and everyone was mad rushing and hanging out at the store because nothing else is open. Never seen the parking lot that full and this was in the middle of the day, well into a lockdown.

celticninja 7y ago
shut down or lockdown generally means you can't leave unless you have a good reason such as getting food or medicine it doesn't mean nobody can leave the house ever without the express permission of the government
- claudeganon 7y ago
  I understand full well what it means, but if you have no limits on how these stores operate and everyone congregating at them, you’re undercutting a lot of your response. See also how businesses are skirting the limits and lobbying behind the scenes about essential vs non-essential work.
  - xur17 7y ago
    I've been surprised by the number of businesses that are classified as "essential". I have a friend that works for a place that is essential, so she still went to the office a few times a week despite being fully able to work remotely.
  - celticninja 7y ago
    at first anything like this has to be done with the cooperation of everybody involved, there are not enough police to enforce something like this. in general most people will operate sensibly, but of course you might get some companies that are still going to try and make that money and will risk their employees and customers for it. some people are selfish assholes

Apreche 7y ago

Bill Gates. Maybe you should bribe congress the same way that right wing scumbags like Koch and Adelson do. Tell them to give us universal health care, impeach Trump, etc. You could also buy FOX News and shut it down. With great power comes great responsibility. You have enough money and power to fix the world, and you only use a mere fraction of it. Sure you got enough Porches in your garage, though.

celticninja 7y ago
what are you talking about the users a vast proportions as well to try and change and fix the world, yes you could lobby for changes in the United States but on the grand scale of things US citizens are not that badly off even with your privatised healthcare system, so he tries to help less-developed Nations and their citizens and you're complaining that she hasn't done enough for you.

jswizzy 7y ago

He also said the web wasn't worth investing in. Genius.

celticninja 7y ago
he also is one of the richest people in the world. genius. neither of which or invalidate is opinion on the shutdown. however the second one means that his opinion is broadcast by the media, he is not the only one that holds this opinion

throwaway040120 7y ago

I'm not impressed by Gate's OpEd. Nothing about making the social changes necessary to keep functioning the way places like Korea have been able to. No mention of Facemasks. All he says is that we should shut everything down for months, test more, and make a vaccine. If you look at his suggestions from a month ago[1] they seemed to be mainly to help poor countries and fast track vaccines. Just a month ago he was completely blind to how much of a problem this would be for wealthy countries, and how weak their response to it was. [1] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19 https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/How-to-respond-to-COVID-19

celticninja 7y ago
a shutdown will help with initial prevention of transmission, once that has been achieved you can end the shutdown but you will still need people to wear masks to prevent a secondary flare up. in places such as Korea, wearing a mask is common anyway so changing that behaviour is not necessary. you try getting America to adopt facemasks overnight and it will likely fail, it will take weeks before you see any fall in infections relying solely on the adoption of face masks.
- throwaway040120 7y ago
  Evidence suggest that masks will slow the spread right now, and every day we wait on this is another day we're not doing everything we can to stop the spread.
  - celticninja 7y ago
    I don't disagree I'm saying that getting people to wear masks is going to be hard. a shutdown removes the reason for leaving the house. if there was no shutdown people would still go out, some in masks and many without, this would mean transmission would continue and so would pressure on health care services. you would flatten the curve but A) at a higher point and B) extend the length of the plateau, instead of seeing the descent
    - 7y ago

ceilingcorner 7y ago

Is Bill Gates an elected official? Is he a medical doctor? Sorry, I understand that he means well, but we need more democratic engagement and less opinions from billionaire industrialists.

Havoc 7y ago
He played a big part in polio eradication efforts. I’d say he has some credibility to speak on this
- catalogia 7y ago
  Did he do more in that effort than play the role of the big wallet?
  - mbreese 7y ago
    When you spend that kind of money on an effort, you don't just write a check and forget about it. He's been known to be very hands on in his global healthcare efforts.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      It's not like he's been to medical school, or has he? So far all I've seen, including your comment, boils down to "Trust him, he's rich."
      - mbreese 7y ago
        It's not "he's rich". It's that he has been actively engaged with all the research programs that he's funded. Global health philanthropy has been his primary job for over a decade. When you're working with experts in the field for that long, you do learn a thing or two. Seriously, you're picking the wrong argument here. Now, if Gates had started talking about rainforest conservation efforts in South America (random topic), he'd have little authority. But on this specific topic, he does.

tathougies 7y ago

I doubt Mr Gates has been to most of the country or is really capable of understanding he people who live there

djsumdog 7y ago
Very true. This idea is an extreme measure and there are costs that are outside the virus, costs that could cost more lives: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-diseases/ https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease...
- tathougies 7y ago
  Right. And a lot of the middle of the country 'flyover states', are incredibly rural and already enact social distancing. They are currently not as affected. People think the United States is one homogenous entity, and that if New York City is endangered, the entire country is. Nothing can be further from the truth. New York City is 1400 miles from Oklahoma City. To put that in perspective, if a simultaneous lockdown of the entire United States is warranted based on an outbreak in New York City, then a lockdown of Mo i Rana Norway is warranted due to the spread in Lombardy. Or, being 3800 miles away, locking down Nome, AK because of New York, is like locking down Darwin Australia in December due to the outbreak in Wuhan. In other words, the distances make these suggestions absolutely ridiculous. In reality, the virus takes time to spread over land, and the US has a lot of empty land. Lockdowns will need to happen in the interior to flatten the curve, but only after the virus starts to manifest there. The goal with lockdown is to not overwhelm the healthcare system while simultaneously insuring enough people get it to ensure herd immunity. Interior states should encourage people to prepare and suggest those especially at risk to limit interactions. For the most part they are. As they become more affected, they should institute a lockdown at the latest possible moment they can to avoid an overwhelmed healthcare system. In the meantime, they should take advantage of their working economy to prepare. The rest of the country benefits from the continued industry of the middle states while they are in lockdown. When it comes time for us to open back up, and them to start lockdown, we should return the favor, by maintaining some semblance of our economy

__s 7y ago

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how-to-make-up-for-lost-time-on-covid-19/2020/03/31/ab5c3cf2-738c-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how... would be the better link, no?

hackonr 7y ago
Paywall, no?
- kick 7y ago
  A paywall that's painless to circumvent.
- __s 7y ago
  > The Washington Post is providing this story for free so that all readers have access to this important information about the coronavirus. For more free stories, sign up for our daily Coronavirus Updates newsletter.

omani 7y ago

why the hell is this guy even talking? who cares about bill gates and his opinion. leave us alone bill.

celticninja 7y ago
maybe your question should be why the media broadcasting his opinion? you are directing your hatred at him but he didn't put his opinion in front of you, he didn't ask you to care about it. stop letting the media push you about.

verytrivial 7y ago

> "Private companies can’t take that kind of risk, but the federal government can. It’s a great sign that the administration made deals this week with at least two companies to prepare for vaccine manufacturing. I hope more deals will follow," he added. I assume this is Gates trying to bait Trump and his handlers into making this all a 'Greatest deal in the world!' ego massage for the one person both legally capable yet emotionally incapable of acting.

chrisco255 7y ago

This is ignorant. The country is the size of a continent. Each subregion should be managed based on current and developing conditions, density of population, weather conditions, etc. Some states have zero deaths, presently and only a few dozen cases. Even China didn't shut down the whole country. Masks and fever checks along with testing should be enough to slow the spread without triggering Great Depression 2.

celticninja 7y ago
China didn't shut down the entire country does not give us any information on spread of the disease in China. if you are buying the Chinese figures for infections and deaths then I have a bridge to sell you.
- gnulinux 7y ago
  I'm so sick and tired of this conspiracy theory going all around reddit. Do we have any reason to disbelieve China's numbers are orders of magnitudes wrong? China's numbers are wrong in the same way Italy and USA's numbers are wrong, because data collection is flawed. It is also very plausible to claim China has incentive to hide new infections in their country. Even US has incentive to have this to minimize the panic. But claiming a country with 1.3 billion people, who recently accepted WHO to audit their pandemic management has a massive epidemic when they're reporting almost no new patients is "US didn't go to the moon" level conspiracy theory. Please put your tin foil hat away.
  - drtillberg 7y ago
    Studies have suggested that something like 80% of Covid-19 infections in China were not reported. In addition, recently there was credible reporting concerning the numbers of cremation urns released post-lockdown. I don't think it's reasonable to talk "tin foil hat". I do think it's reasonable to continue to seek factual answers to important questions.
  - celticninja 7y ago
    yes we do have reason to disbelieve [0] [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-residents-say-chinese-government-coronavirus-death-toll-is-low-2020-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-residents-say-chinese-...

tinyhouse 7y ago

He has a point. People in shutdown states/cities try to "escape" to other places that don't have a shutdown yet. States with very few cases might feel safe but it's shown already that acting early is best.

treis 7y ago

I'm tired of the "shutdown everything" acting like the underpants gnomes. Gates argues for a 10 week or more shutdown and then says we are ~18 months from a vaccine. If we are 18 months from the definitive solution shutting down for 10 weeks doesn't solve much. Sure, it might knock the infection load back down to what it was in late January. But then 2-3 months later we will be right back where we are now. What's the plan then? Another 10+ week shut down? Covid-19 is with us for the foreseeable future and we have to figure out how to live a normal life with it. The effort should be focused on getting us to that place. Ubiquitous masks, temperature checks at public places like work, stores, etc. and a culture shift to stay home when you're sick.

dragontamer 7y ago
> I'm tired of the "shutdown everything" acting like the underpants gnomes. Gates argues for a 10 week or more shutdown and then says we are ~18 months from a vaccine. If we are 18 months from the definitive solution shutting down for 10 weeks doesn't solve much. We're a few weeks away from mass-testing in the USA. By shutting down for a few weeks, we will at least give time for test-kit manufacturers to mass produce test kits and get our health-policy experts ahead of the curve on this. For now, the US has the steepest exponential rise in the world and some of the fewest test-kits per capita. It seems like our citizens are not taking the lockdown seriously, and the disease continues to spread far faster than it really should be. ---------- This isn't about "winning against the disease" anymore. Its about stalling for time so that our nurses have enough N95 masks to be safe while treating people again. We're out of supplies. The nationwide stockpile of masks is depleted. Hospitals are running out of equipment. Stalling for a few weeks will help significantly.
- treis 7y ago
  >We're a few weeks away from mass-testing in the USA. Mass-testing isn't a panacea and is only one piece of the puzzle. We can be implementing the other pieces while our testing capability continues to ramp up. >This isn't about "winning against the disease" anymore. Its about stalling for time so that our nurses have enough N95 masks to be safe while treating people again. Barring some manufacturing miracle we won't have enough disposable N95 masks for a long time. There are plenty of reusable N95 or better masks stockpiled around the country to provide one to every health care worker. We just haven't made a national decision to do that. >We're out of supplies. The nationwide stockpile of masks is depleted. Hospitals are running out of equipment. Stalling for a few weeks will help significantly. It's wishful thinking that a few weeks are going to change anything. We will have pretty much the same tools that we do now to fight the disease. The change that is needed is to make use of what we have.

de_watcher 7y ago

More like you need to turn it off and on again.

howmayiannoyyou 7y ago

A $19 trillion dollar economy is largely shut down to protect - mostly but not entirely - those 65 and older. That's fine, but let's be direct about it. We're sacrificing our doctors, nurses, jobs, national security and much more for our aged and elderly. I'm not saying this is wrong. I'm not saying we should do differently. I really just want to see is clearly stated in this thread.

lm28469 7y ago
How many times will this have to be repeated: not doing anything will cause more people to die because of overcrowded hospitals, health workers would be even more stressed and people under 65 would die of unrelated health issues due to lack of beds and available health worker. People will be sick, sick people can't work (dead people too), the economy would tank either way. This isn't on on/off switch: "let the old die and keep 100% of the economy" VS "try to save the old and destroy the economy"
- logicchains 7y ago
  >the economy would tank either way. If we look at the Spanish flu, the economy recovered pretty well after that, although the war also ended which may have had something to do with it. Look at it this way: even if 20% of people are really sick and can't work, that's still 80% of people working, which is way more than the near 0% of people working if there's a complete lockdown. And even in the worse case of 2% of the population dying (and all being working age; in practice we'd expect most to be retirees), that would on average reduce GDP by 2%, which is way less than it's predicted to fall if there's a 2+ month long complete shutdown. What about if people panic and stop shopping / going to bars, restaurants etc? Well clearly there's still a non-insignificant proportion of people interested in patronising those businesses even with the virus around, otherwise lockdown measures wouldn't be necessary because everyone would be staying at home anyway.
  - mantas 7y ago
    20% are sick and can't work. Then a good chunk of other 80% are not needed because a good chunk of customers are gone. Then quite a bit of people are scared of getting virus, ain't in the mood because of their relatives dying and/or economic situation and don't consume. Demand goes even lower. More people loose their jobs and demand goes even lower. And the spiral continues. Bars and restaurants are great for spreading the virus. Once people learn it the hard way, remaining people won't go there that much. In my country patronising of bars and restaurants fell down the cliff in a couple days mid-march. Closing them down due to quarantine was just a formality in many cases. Sure, some people would still go. But they wouldn't have enough traffic to cover fixed costs.

drtillberg 7y ago

This Gates dude has a 66,000 sq/ft house. Easy for him to say that everyone should just stay at home with no access to public parks and beaches. And he has a private waterfront. For the rest of us, there's no no scientific study that says staying 24hrs/day in our little hovels is more healthful than occasionally walking and enjoying public amenities while maintaining appropriate physical separation from others.

twox2 7y ago
No one is saying you shouldn't take the occasional walk while maintaining physical separation, in fact, that's what's being encouraged here. The reality is that the physical separation part needs to be enforced across the country in order to make a dent.
- drtillberg 7y ago
  The article referenced a closure of beaches. New York recently closed "parks." This is counterproductive. People need spaces in order to be socially distant. If you close all the spaces, they will not be distant.
  - twox2 7y ago
    This is not counterproductive. People have been mobbing the parks. The parks need to be closed. I live in Brooklyn and the groups I've been seeing until VERY recently are disturbing. When you close the parks, there's no where for groups of people to hang out. Need to go on a walk? Sure go on a walk and stay away from people. Not everyone needs to be on the street at the same time either. The reality is that in a densely populated city, parks or not, you can't find the distance unless you go out early morning or late at night and stay off the beaten path.
- Mediterraneo10 7y ago
  > No one is saying you shouldn't take the occasional walk while maintaining physical separation, in fact, that's what's being encouraged here. It depends where. There are countries on lockdown where you are not allowed to go more than 100 m from your home even for exercise. If you live on a street consisting of blocks, then that means there are so many people at a time who would want to do their exercise, that you couldn't really maintain physical separation. Consequently, the authorities expect everyone to stay at home and e.g. buy an exercise bike. Also note that China’s approach in Wuhan was that no one may leave their housing block.

djsumdog 7y ago

This is an unprecedented measure. I can understand the need to do everything possible, but there are other costs. Shutting down rural areas could shut down food supplies, which we're already seeing with seasonal fruit pickers in Europe. COVID-19 becomes critical in people because their immune system overacts and ends up hurting living cells. If they recover, it's just some dead bloodcells and they can be replaced. When our society starts overrating with out social immune system, people die. I wrote about this hidden cost last week: https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-diseases/ https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/covid-19-is-two-disease...

cowpig 7y ago
This is dangerously false (we don't yet know what the long-term effects of COVID-19 will be). How do I flag this for moderator removal?
- djsumdog 7y ago
  Did you read the article? It's my blog post. I wrote it. Instead of just saying it's dangerously false, explain why. Let's have a discussion instead if you jumping the flag button. There are already cases in Europe where fruit is rotting because no one is available to pick it. If the country shuts down like Gates suggest, there are lots of secondary effects that can injure people. It's just like COVID-19, in someone's immune system, overreacting and killing more cells when it doesn't need to. That should not be acceptable in our society.
  - cowpig 7y ago
    There's no evidence to suggest that people who recover from COVID-19 have "only dead blood cells" that can "just be replaced". There is a bunch of evidence that it can cause scarring in peoples' lungs, and it's unclear what other long-term effects there will be.
    - djsumdog 7y ago
      That wasn't what I was implying at all!! In your immune system, it can kill off bad cells and that's acceptable. But when it comes to human beings, we can't let some people die to save the rest. That's unacceptable. That's the analogy I was trying to draw. Human beings are not cogs in a machines. We are not cells who some master brain can dictate things to. We are complex, self-aware beings. You turn off a machine and you can turn it back on again later. Your body kills off a ton of infected cells and that's fine because they grow back and those cells aren't special. Your turn off large parts of this complex machine we've constructed to support 6~7 billion human beings on this planet, and a lot of people are going to die. Even if you can keep people from dying, there is going to be a lot of civil unrest, protests, because there are limits of what we can take as human beings. The point of the post is that there are two diseases. The first is the virus that's killing of tens of thousands of people. Then the second disease will hit; the economic impact of all we are doing to stop the disease, which could leave millions without necessities.

iso1631 7y ago

The bill to implement it would have to be called the "START" Bill.

knocte 7y ago

Bill Gates for president!

knocte 7y ago
downvoters: relax! it's April's fools day

glitchc 7y ago

Bill Gates should stick to writing software that works, instead of preaching destruction of the economy /s

bg117 7y ago

Nations need to have a soul but companies need not. Health is wealth and sometimes, life is more valuable than dollars.

Simulacra 7y ago

Is Bill willing to pay for it? I really don't want to see anything from the mega billionaires right now other than zeros on the checks they are giving to charity, government, and people.

ceejayoz 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat... > As of 2018, Bill and Melinda Gates had donated around $36 billion to the foundation. Yes, he is.
- Simulacra 7y ago
  "As of 2018..donated around $36 billion to the foundation.." You mean Bill's foundation? How about as of April 1st, 2020 how much as Bill and Melinda given in billions separate from their foundation? Is there something more...current you can find?
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    You've moved the goalposts so far we're playing a different sport. I know March 2020 seemed like a decade, but 2018 is a pretty recent number, and $36B is a pretty big number even if it's two years old.
    - Simulacra 7y ago
      No, someone pulled up something from 2018. You may not have noticed but things are considerably different between 2018 and right now. We’re in a totally different world. Did you find something a little more current?
    - Simulacra 7y ago
      Forgive me for second commenting, but I missed one salient point: the genesis of this discussion is that Bill Gates would like the entire economy to shut down. My argument is that gates should instead be looking to inject significantly more cash separate from his foundation, directly into our economy, before he starts demanding the economy shut down.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pcr910303 7y ago

Sorry, I'm not really aware about the situation of COVID-19 in the US, is it that serious so that there are shutdown opinions? What is the current status in the US? Big clusters or unprecedented outbreaks can be controlled with mass/rapid testing and selective quarantine - is the US's situation that bad to all-stop the economy?

twox2 7y ago
Mass/rapid testing is not a thing here due to gross incompetence at a federal level. Some regions are outliers and have been able to ramp up on their own.

csomar 7y ago

I live in a country going through the second week of Shutdown. This is simply stupid and irresponsible. Unlike China which had a limited regional shutdown and where the government controlled lots of everyday life; most of the other countries are running with the private sector. A 3-4 months shutdown is going to bankrupt pretty much everyone. Those who were running thin but also those who were saving a bit. Unless you have a 1 year expenses upfront and probably own your house in your name, you are going bankrupt and will be relying on the government for help. Next we are going to see massive disruption for pretty much everything and every consumer good. This is a good opportunity for government intervention and for government (or Big Co) to own pretty much everything. The virus might kill 100k in the US (or millions) let's just assume that cost and prepare for a future outbreak.

alexandercrohde 7y ago
Virus is going to kill 1m in the US no matter what, even if every single person had a dedicated ICU [1]. People who can't emotionally accept that shouldn't partake in the discussion, because that's table-stakes. [1]. https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/77482/5/Imperial%20College%20COVID19%20NPI%20modelling%2016-03-2020.pdf https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/77482/5/Impe...
- djsumdog 7y ago
  > Neil M Ferguson You do realize this guy, the first guy listed in the paper, originally said the UK would loose 400,000 and the US 2 million no matter what. Now he's saying 20k for the US, but he's still trying to tell us his original estimate wasn't wrong, it was just assuming people did nothing, which is not what his original estimate said at all! None of his estimates have matched the numbers so far, not even in Italy. Ferguson and his other researchers are spreading bad and dangerous information.
  - votepaunchy 7y ago
    > Now he's saying 20k for the US Whatever numbers can be believed, the US is already over 4000 deaths at 900+/day.

ddebernardy 7y ago

As the saying goes, you can depend on Americans to do the right thing when they have exhausted every other possibility. (Not by Churchill [1].) Plus, it's not a given that it is the right thing to do, especially if there's no plan for what comes after; and there reportedly are early signs of social unrest on this side of the pond [2]. A shutdown can't last until there's a vaccine. At best it buys you time. [1]: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternatives/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/11/exhaust-alternative... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/singing-stops-italy-fear-social-unrest-mount-coronavirus-lockdown https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/singing-stops-...

balladeer 7y ago
> At best it buys you time. That's the very point. It takes some (or a lot of) burden off the health infra. Lockdown is being done in many countries so that not everybody will need hospitalisation at the same time.
- ddebernardy 7y ago
  Sure, but for how long will it remain sustainable? The lockdown hasn't lasted a month in Italy and they're already seeing early signs of food theft that could potentially degenerate into food riots. I'm struggling to imagine how any country will make it sustainable for more than a month or two. Yet on paper, a prerequisite for stopping the lockdown seems to be that you've been testing on a fairly large scale, which only Korea seems to have pulled off. The situation in France, for instance, is unenviable at the moment and absolutely not sustainable: albeit to a lesser degree as in the US, there's not enough PPE for essential staff, not enough masks for everyone else, and most crucially not enough tests to go about. Yet there's a full lockdown with fines and all, and insofar as I'm aware there isn't enough financial help for employers or employees or the self-employed or anyone else. It's only a matter of time before everyone realizes that they're going into this like it's 1914, expecting it'll all be over by the autumn. It won't. It won't, because of asymptomatic cases and because the virus is spreading in developing countries. Rich countries won't want to shell out the trillions that might be needed so the latter can cope with the situation. (And that will translate into yet another migration crisis to boot. Etc. Etc.) For better or worse, the current lockdown measures in a growing number of countries are only postponing the inevitable mass outbreak by a few weeks. That is, unless countries get their act together and find a huge pot of money to tap into -- and in periods with a collapsing economy, the only sane pot of money to tap into is wealth. I'm not holding my breath.

erex78 7y ago

The ads on this page are ridiculous. Here’s a link to the actual op-ed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how-to-make-up-for-lost-time-on-covid-19/2020/03/31/ab5c3cf2-738c-11ea-85cb-8670579b863d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bill-gates-heres-how...

motohagiography 7y ago

"We can start now by building the facilities where these vaccines will be made," Gates wrote. "Because many of the top candidates are made using unique equipment, we’ll have to build facilities for each of them, knowing that some won’t get used." "Private companies can’t take that kind of risk, but the federal government can. It’s a great sign that the administration made deals this week with at least two companies to prepare for vaccine manufacturing. I hope more deals will follow," he added. Arguably, this is precisely the kind of risk that venture capital and startups take every day. Yes, government needs to co-ordinate funding for this and execute where it can. Anything that helps them is great. However, if someone wants to put $10 million (total of large seed rounds or a small A) into building these facilities as well, open it up, as there is a huge amount of cash sitting on the sidelines right now, and if a small team can get these built, it's worth examining the potential.

StillBored 7y ago

Easy for Bill Gates, he won't be standing in the food lines in 12 months when the result of this shutdown starts to really hit home. We are going to look back on this as a huge mistake. Its one thing if 50% of the population dies and your trying to save them. Its another thing when its somewhere around 2%, which is roughly the yearly death toll, which means about 2x the number of people who were going to die this year are going to die.

r00fus 7y ago
Wouldn't it be the original death toll + 2%? Ie, double the death total for the year? That sounds like a BFD to me. Not to mention the rest of the deaths that will happen due to the medical system being overloaded after free-transmission period took place.

calibas 7y ago

Bill Gates' meddling is a big part of what got us into this mess. He's practically bought out the WHO, here's some good reading on that: https://www.politico.eu/article/bill-gates-who-most-powerful-doctor/ https://www.politico.eu/article/bill-gates-who-most-powerful... So we have a weak WHO that people are manipulating for their personal goals, altruistic or not. Then there's this outbreak in China, and the WHO just completely screwed up every opportunity to contain the thing. They went right along with the Chinese government and announced no evidence of human to human transmission (their travel advisory said if you go to Wuhan you should wash your hands). Now in my opinion the WHO should be tearing into the Chinese government for an apparent coverup and allowing the virus to spread internationally. Instead Tedros, WHO head and Bill Gates connection, is praising China.

Overtonwindow 7y ago

I disagree here. I don’t think a total shut down of the economy is necessary, and I would like to see the nations billionaires stepping up with more cold hard cash. I appreciate what Bill and Melinda have done through their foundation, but I’m a little suspicious. I guess I just like to see more from him then shut down the economy and everybody stay home in our mansions… I mean homes.

thewindowmovie 7y ago

US seems to be going through different stages of denial. First it was that only Chinese will spread the disease. Then it was dismissed as mere flu. Now they seem to have acknowledged the severity of the situation. It is disheartening to read in this thread some comment taking the human life so lightly. Is not that the US going to support those going through unemployment with cheques and other benefits? Is it not more important for the people to be healthy so that the economy can be restarted once all this is over? It is depressing to read the comments from citizens of the wealthiest country in the world.

dingaling 7y ago
It's not necessarily that people are taking human life lightly, just that priorities may not be the same for everyone. In the UK we've already had cancer patients who have died because their treatment was cancelled to free-up hospitals for COVID patients. Nine murders have been attributed to people not being able to cope with lockdown in their own homes. Why are the lives of ( primarily ) old people with comorbidities considered of higher priority than them? Pragmatically one could argue that economically and socially it would be fairer to just let people who contract COVID die. But politics intervenes and forbids that.
- gitrog 7y ago
  > Pragmatically one could argue that economically and socially it would be fairer to just let people who contract COVID die. But politics intervenes and forbids that. Really? And what if two thirds of the world contracted it and ~3% of those died. I ask you to provide your own proof, models or what not, that letting this virus run rampant won't have equally or even more disastrous affects economically and socially.

iso1631 7y ago

Interesting fact 27% of the Senate are over 70, 66% over 60. This disease almost exclusively affects people over 60.

timbit42 7y ago
It affects people with particular underlying medical conditions more than those who are older. It's just that those who are older tend to have more underlying medical conditions, but any young person with particular underlying medical conditions is at greater risk than a 99 year old with no underlying medical conditions. I saw yesterday a healthy 99 year old survived it.

nojvek 7y ago

Ideally if we closed off the borders early to non-citizens + temporary residents, we’d be in an entirely different situation. The administration did things half-assed. At the first notice of the virus, Trump was in denial. The first case was on Jan 20th. After 40 days they were still downplaying it saying it will go to zero. The borders and airports were where it would spread. Ideally every incoming passenger would have been tested. Every single one. The other way would be to lock down hotspots. Like China locked out Wuhan from rest of country. However in US many things are just hard to achieve since we are a democracy. US most likely will have more deaths than other countries, mostly because we have third highest population. China and India seem somewhat competent. I guess time will tell.

RickJWagner 7y ago

.... and just yesterday HN had an NPR article explaining that Germany is doing so much better because they have local regions that can make autonomous decisions, unencumbered by a one-size fits all mandate. There are lots of opinions on how to fight coronavirus. It's hard to tell which ones are right. // Yesterday's contradictory words of wisdom https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/820595489/why-germanys-coronavirus-death-rate-is-far-lower-than-in-other-countries https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/820595489/why-germanys-corona...

cbiimport 7y ago

Way we still open for .? All state must shutdown for the safety of the people . What we waiting for .? To see thousands of people dying .!!