Bill Gates Warns The "Next Pandemic" Is Coming After Covid-19 - And How To Stop It | MSNBC

and welcome to our exclusive interview with

bill

gates

, the entrepreneur co-founder of microsoft, software developer and philanthropist, thank you for being here, it's a pleasure speaking with you, the annual letter from the

bill

and melinda

gates

foundation just came out. They both wrote about how this

pandemic

in their vision will be as defining as World War II. What are the key steps to take at this time? Well, we have to do two things at once. We have to end this epidemic. Mainly by distributing the vaccine in large quantities. the whole world and we have to make sure that we are ready because there will be another

pandemic

and there are so many lessons about how we were not prepared, how we should have handled things differently and you know when that is clearly in our mind. uh those investments need to be made, you mention you're ready for

next

time and you warned about this last time, let's take a quick look at a warning you issued in 2015, if something kills more than 10 million people in the

next

few decades , most likely it will be a highly infectious virus if we start now can we be prepared for the next epidemic how prepared was the world for this, let's say on a scale of one to ten and how about the US um, US.

The U.S. scores low because understanding how to get large-scale diagnoses early to

stop

exponential spread, you know, if that had been done right, we would have been more like Australia or South Korea, where the death toll is less than a tenth of the tragic situation in the United States, so we made mistakes before the epidemic and did not invest more and then during the epidemic we also made mistakes. There is one category where we did well, which was sending R&D money to vaccine companies. The United States was the greatest at that and at least you know it.

That area in which we have established a model for the world. You are very specific in your work and the letter about what should come next. You talk about a global alert system. Infectious disease rescuers and germ games tell us what some of what it looks like and if you think international organizations and the Biden administration can do more about it now, the good thing is that the tens of billions needed for all that Preparation is the insurance policy that prevents losing tens of billions, as if we were right all over the world. Now it's a great bargain, even if you just look at what it can do to help during a pandemic, but those investments can also help us improve health on a much broader basis so that the mRNA vaccine can be used for tuberculosis and HIV .

You know, we're very excited about that and we've been funding mRNA for over 10 years and now you know we accelerate its development and the incorporation of those early warning systems that will improve health around the world so this time. I think people will pay attention. Your letter also goes through a lot of influences, from the movie Contagion to Winston Churchill, through you and your wife's interest in confronting systemic racism, eh, and structural racism, and you write that pandemics, between quotes, exploit pre-existing inequalities and you are working and funding with historically black colleges on testing, explain to us what this means, why it happens this way, it has to be this way and how it is fixed well, it is quite surprising that the infection rate and the mortality rate in minorities has been more than double and that really would not have been expected uh in fact we need to understand it much better you know it's partly multigenerational households uh it's partly occupational occupation uh you know it may have been the ability to travel communicate messages of health to those homes, you know, I'm surprised by that, unfortunately, I'm not surprised by the idea that the inner city schools were the least prepared with Internet connections and training to be able to do it online. education and therefore the gap between suburban schools and inner city schools, which was already very large and, you know, terrible inequality, has been more dramatic in this last year than ever, so we have to reinvest in those schools. taking some of the good things that we've learned about how we can use online tools, but helping those kids catch up, you know, Mr.

Gates, trying to warn about pandemics and then protecting people's lives during them doesn't It sounds so controversial, but as you know and I think some of our viewers know that he has a lot of critics, including, for example, a Fox News host attacking him for defending contact tracing in April. Take a look, there is a new threat to our rights on the horizon and it is being driven by the second richest man in the world according to Gates, the only way to responsibly end the closures is to implement a fairly extensive surveillance system, arguing that It will not be safe to work, travel, go to church, or watch a baseball game unless you give up our personal data.

I haven't seen scientific evidence of any of that. A fair assessment of what you are trying to do and what your response is. Well, contract racing was incredibly beneficial in places like South Korea and you know we. We would have hundreds of thousands of people alive today in the US if we had done that, the data you don't actually need to reveal your personal data, that's not a fair way to describe it, you know, some societies actually chose to do that. . That works unfortunately due to our errors and diagnoses. Our numbers became so large that even the states that made an effort, the benefits of contact racing were not gigantic.

So as you go down, you know, lower infection rates. three four percent, so the networking race helps reduce that, even more so when you look at that type of disagreement or attack, do you see it as just being ignorant or also malicious? because there are many things on the Internet that are not true, we are not. giving airtime to um, but that's trying to get you involved in something, yeah, so both myself and Dr. Fauci uh appear in conspiracy theories, you know, like Dr. Fauci is said to be trying to make money off of these. vaccines and several negative things about me. uh you know, you're encouraging people not to trust advice about masks or vaccination and that could be harmful.

It is a new phenomenon. I don't know, you know? Will it hurt acceptance of the vaccine by everyone who takes it? This is not just about protecting themselves, but about reducing their transmission to other people and allowing society to return to normal. You know, it's a completely unexpected phenomenon and, unfortunately, a lot of this is based on false information. Yes, just a follower. You are known to be efficient and optimistic, what do you say to people who see this and feel like expert scientists? You warned and gave information to the public and, by your own assessment, you still failed to do so today.

It is not going very well according to the government policies in charge and you are still here working on it. What do you say to people who are pessimistic about failure or incompetence and lies triumph? Well, whenever you make mistakes, you have to make them. learn from them and America has so much talent, so much ability to do things right, so much ability to lead the world and help, and in almost every infectious disease event of the last hundred years, the United States played a very important role, the CDC is the most important. respected health organization in this we did not set a good example and we even withdrew from the WHO, so, you know, it was not our best moment, but I remain optimistic and look at the new team, which is committed, you know, looking.

That science is willing to deliver the bad news that the next few months will continue to be difficult and you know I feel great because we were correcting some of the mistakes that were made. You mentioned the new team was president. Biden has the right to rejoin the WHO and have you spoken to him recently or could you speak to him, Melinda and I shortly after the election and the pandemic was definitely one of the key issues there and we are delighted that he has rejoined ? the who because that's where you share best practices, that's where you know, make sure the numbers are there to see what's going on, for example, understand these variants that are a little scary because they're more transmissive and soon we'll get data on If the vaccines are a little less effective or not, then yes, it is a common sense measure to unite the world because it is us against the disease and each of these vaccines involves scientists from many countries and the trials were done in many countries that You know, no country alone could address this.

In the letter, you discussed how so many people are struggling, so many people are grieving because of Covid and you yourself commented that you couldn't even gather in person for your father when he died in September. I was very proud of you and people like me from Seattle, I know his work and yours and I just wanted to play him a little bit. If you don't mind us showing this, let me introduce you to Bill Gates, the world's greatest philanthropist. history of the world how you feel when you are able to present something to him there are no words to describe it well how much pride you can have whatever the highest number is that's where I am your reflections and what he taught you well My father, both, you know, He set a good example and was always willing to tell me when he thought I should do better.

He personally, with Patty Stonecipher, helped create the foundation while I was still working full time at Microsoft, so his integrity really. establishing the culture of that organization, you know, my father's example is one that I will never match, but you know he made a big difference and you know he was always encouraging me, you know, I loved the fact that he he was involved and so it's sad, you know he lived a great life, uh, you know, he was 94 years old, uh, when he died, and uh, so we had to limit that thing of getting together and sharing our thoughts and our pain, um, but you know, no.

One has never been luckier in terms of who his father was. He worked with you and your family to really start thinking about and giving away much of the wealth you created, which was because you were so good at business, among other things. Simple question for you, Mr. Gates, when we look at the four largest companies in America, we have Microsoft, uh, Alphabet, Amazon and Apple, why are they all technology companies? I'm biased, I think technology has done amazing things, obviously, you know we have. uh, you have rules about it, but wow, uh, the magic of software, the Internet, uh, the ability to look at data, allow scientists to collaborate, you know, technology has done phenomenal things, so you know, my whole life I've been evangelizing, you know, let's take advantage of it to improve education to improve health uh there's a lot more to do uh but there's a lot of incredible work uh those companies are responsible and even my founding work that was my whole focus was that work and uh you I know it goes on yeah you were celebrated for it the company took criticism for it.

I'm curious, as we look today. The government definitely attacked Microsoft for alleged anti-competitive behavior. We're not here to relitigate all of that today, but there are a lot of informed people who look at big tech companies today and think they're not having it as bad as you. Do you think today's CEOs know how lucky they can be and that will change? I think as you go along, there are a lot of questions, you know, Microsoft wasn't in the social media business, it was political issues and conspiracies, and you know how to draw the line on what's there.

Tech companies are so important now that it's no surprise that governments are looking at competing interoperability, uh and uh, you know, there are lessons or things that Microsoft learned as we interact with the government. I hope the others come back and you know, look, you know, how it all went, but it makes sense that the government would care a lot about the central role of technology and make sure that we get more of the good and less of the bad, Which brings us to something I really want to ask you about. I have a feeling that maybe I don't want to respond much but you are so influential in these areas that I will try anyway and that is the power of these social media companies to post or delist and ban people is huge and, as you know, The original concern hundreds of years ago was that the government would disappear.

It speaks to many people, especially young people, who are more concerned about where they are online than anything the federal government can do. Are you at all concerned that tech companies can make basically unchecked decisions? to get people off their platforms, they might get a lot right on the call, but then there's no advice or thought about that, clearly there are tradeoffs involved where you know false information that you know causes disturbances or that people don't trust . Uh, meds or rewrites, you know the oneHistory, such as holocaust denial, how the line is drawn and who is in a position to draw it, is a great thing for people to debate.

I haven't seen a great solution where the line is drawn in a way that everyone is comfortable with who does the interpreting and how it works. You know there's been a lot of bad stuff on social media and you know I'm glad that at least some of it is being held back because you say you might go too far but uh you know my tech career is largely over now you know that I'm a health champion, uh, and this next generation has to solve this problem, yeah, got it, you've always been your own boss, but you also have a little bit of a style that's sometimes called being a boss, the difference is that You don't know if you're technically the boss, but if you have that confidence and we were going through the files and we found a great example of this, a young Mr.

Gates, uh, explaining his perspective, take a look, he sees himself working for someone else, I've never done that. fact, can you see it well in the sense that we? working together, but reporting to a boss I'm used to having a company where the ideas I have are something I can easily implement, so I think it would be a difficult transition. How important was your confidence as well as your innovation in your career, well, certainly when I was young, you know, I had the chutzpah of youth to pursue ideas that seemed crazy at the time, you know, a computer on every desk in every home. , the software central, and you know, I, you know, became I realized that those beliefs actually worked very well and that's why I have the wealth that now goes to the foundation and you know it's there to try to provide healthy lives even in the poorest countries, so you know I'm lucky, my interests.

Personality, all my times coincided, so the Microsoft fortune that you know is now being given away is the best that Melinda and I can, before we lose you, I have to ask you about your role in music and culture. I read that you and Melinda like Willie Nelson. and the sound of music, but the genre where he is cited the most is hip-hop, over 125 songs quote him, uh, mr. gates, including lil wayne's bill gates and rick ross' bill gates, and the common theme here There are many rappers with humble roots. They say they are inspired by both his work ethic and his success.

I wanted to ask him about just three of them where he could tell us if they got it right or maybe not, they're a little bit wrong and the first one is from andre 3000. and he says what he likes about you is that you don't show off your wealth, he says that Bill Gates doesn't hang diamonds in your face when Microsoft is in the right place or not right, you know the lyrics, don't you know the latest? uh complete description of the people I have a kind of doubt uh you know that I am very lucky you know that sometimes you know how to fly on a plane you know that I have uh you know that I don't have to worry about whether I'm going to have enough money for things like the education of The kids, you know, so you know, I hope to take some responsibility for the fortunate position I'm in by giving my time to the foundation, but Andre seems to like that I don't think about you.

They're flashy, well I'll try, I'll try to take them, they live up to that, you know, I'm not trying to be flashy, here's one on fiscal policy. This is from the young badass New York rapper Joey, he says he just had to do it. pay like 60 stacks in taxes why do they take a portion of my assets Does Bill Gates have these same fees? Please, I need the answers. Is it accurate? Do some rich people avoid their fair share? You know, I paid over 10 billion in taxes and I think you could have a progressive tax system where people in my position would have paid more.

Obviously, you can go to an extreme where you hurt incentives, but you know the United States is a long way from that and, according to my Gates notes. You can see some ideas about how to make American taxes more progressive, you know, but I'm just a voter on that question, um, and I would ultimately love to do a lightning round where I say a word to you and you give us a word. your thoughts and you know a sentence or a word and people can see that you're concise so I don't think this is difficult for you uh in a word or a sentence recovery 2020 normality 2021 your microwave dinners that we've heard about uh , very dry and uh what could your next ted talk be about uh well my 2010 ted talk was about climate change so climate change and pandemics is where I'm trying to help the world have good plans for that we don't suffer the enormous consequences well, I want to thank you for your time thanks to bill gates for being our debut guest on the beats summit series with ari melber yeah, great talking to you hey, I'm ari melvin from

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