30 ms·

Bill Gates on Covid: Most US Tests Are ‘Completely Garbage’

44 points by emptybits 6y ago

vikramkr 6y ago
This is a really disingenuous and dangerous title by Wired and they should change it immediately. It does not reflect the content of the article and what Gates actually said in their own interview. Gates does not say the tests do not work. He says they take too long. Gates is saying tests are garbage because they take too long to get results back so they aren't actionable. This has nothing to do with the scientific/diagnostic/technical capability of the tests (which is a separate issue with antibody testing but not with PCR testing, which is what Gates is discussing). I get that it gets more clicks, but the obvious interpretation for the person who looks at the title and doesn't scroll over halfway down the page is that "Gates says COVID diagnostic tests don't work, so I guess if he's right, then there's no point trying to scale up testing or anything since the tests are garbage anyway." The takeaway is the opposite - the results aren't getting back fast enough, we need better prioritization and capacity. Especially with how much misinformation is spreading regarding this pandemic, and how many lives are on the line, Wired should reconsider its title policy and change the headline to reflect the content in their own article rather than imply dangerous misinformation to grab attention. Edit: On the offchance that the title on HN or on Wired gets changed, the original title that I am referring to is "Bill Gates on Covid: Most US Tests Are ‘Completely Garbage’" That title is not reflective of the content of the article or the context of Bill Gates' statement in the interview.
- mc32 6y ago
  Yeah that’s too bad. Glancing at the headline you’d think the tests themselves were unreliable, rather than the results backlog making them inactionable. Sigh.
- bmitc 6y ago
  I agree regarding the title after reading the article. I had assumed that the tests weren't accurate. Also, it actually hurts the viewpoint in the article, as Gates has found his actionable advice is ignored in the wake of social media conspiracy theories and the administration's unwillingness to listen to anything.
- bart_spoon 6y ago
  I agree. In fact, the line about was one of the least interesting things discussed. Ironically, misinformation via social media is a huge part of this interview.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- junar 6y ago
  Yes, they chopped off the next word he said, "wasted". The title should have used that word instead.
mchusma 6y ago
Agree. When I saw the headline I thought it meant almost the opposite. The FDA needs to aggressively allow more tests so long as they are not misleading about their efficacy. I know fast cheap tests are stuck pending approval right now because the FDA doesn't like that they are less accurate. (I think better messaging from the test would no say positive or negative, rather: You have 1 in 3 chance of having covid vs you have 1 in 200 chance of having covid, instead of positive vs negative, something like that).
bmitc 6y ago
There are a few things that stand out to me in this interview. One is the CDC saying something to the effect of "they said that leadership has to be a model of face mask usage" and yet, both our president and vice president are parading around without masks. This is really scary stuff that reflects the, I don't even know what the word is, idiocy or stubbornness or narcissism maybe, of our government's so-called leaders. The more scary thing is this: > And that makes me feel like, for the rich world, we should largely be able to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end of 2022. ... Now whenever we get this done, we will have lost many years in malaria and polio and HIV and the indebtedness of countries of all sizes and instability. It’ll take you years beyond that before you’d even get back to where you were at the start of 2020. It’s not World War I or World War II, but it is in that order of magnitude as a negative shock to the system. The long term effects of the U.S. government's handling of this is very, very scary. What's scary about all this is that everyone is assuming that if and when we get a vaccine that everything will just restart back where it left off or even ahead. This is not the case. We are doing two things: delaying nearly everything into the future and reverting progress on the other things. Other long terms effects are happening. I have friends in China. I have Chinese friends, well educated and talented friends, moving back to China because either they want to (makes sense at this point), are being kicked out due to H1B issues or can't get back in, or can't find jobs here. China, outside of viral hotspots, is essentially back to normal. We're losing talent, people who were obviously keen on the U.S. but unlikely to be now, and diversity in the process and feeding back those people elsewhere. This is repeating across many immigrants and non-immigrant workers. The U.S. is slowed down across all vectors. Not only are millions getting the virus and hundreds of thousands dying, we have unemployment, slowed economy, slowed travel, stunted government doing literally nothing of any use on the virus or anything else, etc. It is quite scary to understand the long term effects of this and that we have a very real chance of being leapfrogged in the process, letting this thing drag on for decades in terms of the reverberations throughout society. One of the examples of the attitude in the U.S. is that many just shrug it off with this is just another flu. Even if that was the case, which it emphatically is not, who the hell would be okay with another flu? The flu costs approximately $10.4 billion in direct costs alone every year. We're losing much, much more than that due to the effects of and the response to COVID-19. The last thing is Gate's comments on encryption and the explosion of viral conspiracy theories and false knowledge on social media. We are in real trouble in the U.S. with social media running rampant. I think this ideal of sticking to the guns of no censorship and supposed safety of data is naïve in this age. I think we are in real trouble if we allow YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. continue to allow users to run rampant on their platforms. What is extra scary is that it's not like our government and leadership is immune to these conspiracy theories and false knowledge. In fact, our government leaders are sources and amplifiers of these things! This is very concerning and dangerous. Adam Curtis' documentary All Watched Over by Machines of Ever Loving Grace covers the Silicon valley dream of the Internet and technology liberating us, when it is in fact caging us with chaotic misinformation and control. I think the world will find that we do need a model that's a cross between the U.S. and Chinese model of Internet censorship or other innovation to control the spread of viral false knowledge. I am personally perfectly willing to give up so-called privacy (which I honestly don't think even exists anymore anyway) in exchange for these conspiracy theories and viral false knowledge being suppressed, as these later things are far more detrimental to my life and all of our lives. These technology companies have got to check the systems they've built. Twitter should have banned Trump long ago for spreading misinformation and blatantly false information just as they should for others doing the same. That's why this GPT-3 is not exciting but scary. It's dumb but people think it's smart, and it and other tools will allow the deep viral spread of dangerous ideologies and misinformation. In 100 years, without more control, we're going to be swimming in a pool of not knowing anything and fighting about what's true or not while not addressing any actual problems, which is already happening in the U.S. Without addressing these issues, we are very quickly heading for a long-term downturn and a cesspool of misinformation in which nothing gets done because we're all just trying to survive the turbulence.
pcdoodle 6y ago
F- Gates!

44 points by emptybits 6y ago

This is a really disingenuous and dangerous title by Wired and they should change it immediately. It does not reflect the content of the article and what Gates actually said in their own interview. Gates does not say the tests do not work. He says they take too long. Gates is saying tests are garbage because they take too long to get results back so they aren't actionable. This has nothing to do with the scientific/diagnostic/technical capability of the tests (which is a separate issue with antibody testing but not with PCR testing, which is what Gates is discussing). I get that it gets more clicks, but the obvious interpretation for the person who looks at the title and doesn't scroll over halfway down the page is that "Gates says COVID diagnostic tests don't work, so I guess if he's right, then there's no point trying to scale up testing or anything since the tests are garbage anyway." The takeaway is the opposite - the results aren't getting back fast enough, we need better prioritization and capacity. Especially with how much misinformation is spreading regarding this pandemic, and how many lives are on the line, Wired should reconsider its title policy and change the headline to reflect the content in their own article rather than imply dangerous misinformation to grab attention. Edit: On the offchance that the title on HN or on Wired gets changed, the original title that I am referring to is "Bill Gates on Covid: Most US Tests Are ‘Completely Garbage’" That title is not reflective of the content of the article or the context of Bill Gates' statement in the interview.

mc32 6y ago
Yeah that’s too bad. Glancing at the headline you’d think the tests themselves were unreliable, rather than the results backlog making them inactionable. Sigh.
bmitc 6y ago
I agree regarding the title after reading the article. I had assumed that the tests weren't accurate. Also, it actually hurts the viewpoint in the article, as Gates has found his actionable advice is ignored in the wake of social media conspiracy theories and the administration's unwillingness to listen to anything.
bart_spoon 6y ago
I agree. In fact, the line about was one of the least interesting things discussed. Ironically, misinformation via social media is a huge part of this interview.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
junar 6y ago
Yes, they chopped off the next word he said, "wasted". The title should have used that word instead.

mchusma 6y ago

Agree. When I saw the headline I thought it meant almost the opposite. The FDA needs to aggressively allow more tests so long as they are not misleading about their efficacy. I know fast cheap tests are stuck pending approval right now because the FDA doesn't like that they are less accurate. (I think better messaging from the test would no say positive or negative, rather: You have 1 in 3 chance of having covid vs you have 1 in 200 chance of having covid, instead of positive vs negative, something like that).

bmitc 6y ago

There are a few things that stand out to me in this interview. One is the CDC saying something to the effect of "they said that leadership has to be a model of face mask usage" and yet, both our president and vice president are parading around without masks. This is really scary stuff that reflects the, I don't even know what the word is, idiocy or stubbornness or narcissism maybe, of our government's so-called leaders. The more scary thing is this: > And that makes me feel like, for the rich world, we should largely be able to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end of 2022. ... Now whenever we get this done, we will have lost many years in malaria and polio and HIV and the indebtedness of countries of all sizes and instability. It’ll take you years beyond that before you’d even get back to where you were at the start of 2020. It’s not World War I or World War II, but it is in that order of magnitude as a negative shock to the system. The long term effects of the U.S. government's handling of this is very, very scary. What's scary about all this is that everyone is assuming that if and when we get a vaccine that everything will just restart back where it left off or even ahead. This is not the case. We are doing two things: delaying nearly everything into the future and reverting progress on the other things. Other long terms effects are happening. I have friends in China. I have Chinese friends, well educated and talented friends, moving back to China because either they want to (makes sense at this point), are being kicked out due to H1B issues or can't get back in, or can't find jobs here. China, outside of viral hotspots, is essentially back to normal. We're losing talent, people who were obviously keen on the U.S. but unlikely to be now, and diversity in the process and feeding back those people elsewhere. This is repeating across many immigrants and non-immigrant workers. The U.S. is slowed down across all vectors. Not only are millions getting the virus and hundreds of thousands dying, we have unemployment, slowed economy, slowed travel, stunted government doing literally nothing of any use on the virus or anything else, etc. It is quite scary to understand the long term effects of this and that we have a very real chance of being leapfrogged in the process, letting this thing drag on for decades in terms of the reverberations throughout society. One of the examples of the attitude in the U.S. is that many just shrug it off with this is just another flu. Even if that was the case, which it emphatically is not, who the hell would be okay with another flu? The flu costs approximately $10.4 billion in direct costs alone every year. We're losing much, much more than that due to the effects of and the response to COVID-19. The last thing is Gate's comments on encryption and the explosion of viral conspiracy theories and false knowledge on social media. We are in real trouble in the U.S. with social media running rampant. I think this ideal of sticking to the guns of no censorship and supposed safety of data is naïve in this age. I think we are in real trouble if we allow YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. continue to allow users to run rampant on their platforms. What is extra scary is that it's not like our government and leadership is immune to these conspiracy theories and false knowledge. In fact, our government leaders are sources and amplifiers of these things! This is very concerning and dangerous. Adam Curtis' documentary All Watched Over by Machines of Ever Loving Grace covers the Silicon valley dream of the Internet and technology liberating us, when it is in fact caging us with chaotic misinformation and control. I think the world will find that we do need a model that's a cross between the U.S. and Chinese model of Internet censorship or other innovation to control the spread of viral false knowledge. I am personally perfectly willing to give up so-called privacy (which I honestly don't think even exists anymore anyway) in exchange for these conspiracy theories and viral false knowledge being suppressed, as these later things are far more detrimental to my life and all of our lives. These technology companies have got to check the systems they've built. Twitter should have banned Trump long ago for spreading misinformation and blatantly false information just as they should for others doing the same. That's why this GPT-3 is not exciting but scary. It's dumb but people think it's smart, and it and other tools will allow the deep viral spread of dangerous ideologies and misinformation. In 100 years, without more control, we're going to be swimming in a pool of not knowing anything and fighting about what's true or not while not addressing any actual problems, which is already happening in the U.S. Without addressing these issues, we are very quickly heading for a long-term downturn and a cesspool of misinformation in which nothing gets done because we're all just trying to survive the turbulence.

pcdoodle 6y ago

F- Gates!