If anyone is allowed to say 'I told you so', it might be Bill Gates. His TED talk in 2015 warned of the cost of a pandemic and then set out a public health response needed to fight it – a blueprint for today’s emergency.
During our – virtual – conversation, the words never cross his lips.
“In this particular crisis, there is a bit of a vacuum of leadership”, says Gates, with softly-spoken understatement. “Because the US is primarily focused on the US situation. So I have been speaking to Macron, Merkel, Ramaphosa and various others about how we can get this cooperation”.
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| ‘Coronavirus Will Cost Far More Than $3 Trillion’ says Bill Gates |
Since the opening chapter of the pandemic in Wuhan, he has focused the considerable resources of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight it.
He has also backed with words and cash the global institutions on the frontline, like the World Health Organisation, currently in the crosshairs of US President Donald Trump, and the Africa Centres for Disease Control, working with the African Union in Addis Ababa.
The coronavirus pandemic has come at the toughest time for a coordinated international approach: a decade of nationalism, culminating in the era of Trump, Brexit, Hindu supremacy, Brazilian autarky. Strong-armed regimes who blamed outsiders for their failures are hunkering down in many capitals. Trade wars and military stand-offs are the new global currency. ‘Coronavirus Will Cost Far More Than $3 Trillion’ says Bill Gates
