Mega-billionaire philanthropist 64-year-old former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates said that U.S. cannot return to business-as-usual without more coronavirus AKA CoV-2 or Covid-19 testing. “We’re in big trouble,” Gates said, sowing unwanted panic in people who value his opinion. Like his 89-year-old billionaire investor friend Warren Buffett, they both equate money with intelligence, wisdom and common sense, when in fact their opinions are no more valuable than anyone else. Gates especially likes to tout his charitable foundation which he claims has given away most of his wealth, yet Forbes still rates his wealth at $102.1 billion, making him the second wealthiest person in the United States behind 56-year-old Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at $124 billion, after giving his ex-wife Mackenzie $60 billion in the most pricey divorce settlement in world history, still leaving him top dog.
Unlike Gates and Buffett, Bezos goes about his business quietly, refraining from opining on big economic or sociocultural topics. Gates has no problem telling lawmakers—or infectious disease experts—what to do. After all, he’s Bill Gates, the former richest man in the world. Gates used South Korea as a model for how the United States must return to some semblance of normalcy in a post-coronavirus era. “The natural thing would be to do like South Korea did, and create a unified system—that we haven’t gotten any interest from the federal level,” Gates said. Gates tried to explain himself but sounded less coherent. “The thinking is to create a website that you go in and enter your situation and it would give you a priority number, and then hopefully all the people who control the capacity limit the priority level they accept, so they’re giving these very quick results and to the right people.”
If that doesn’t sound like a madman, then what does? Gates is talking about tracking every U.S. citizen and forcing them to get tested for SARS CoV-2, fearing, without a state-controlled system like South Korea, the government won’t stop the virus spread, eventually engulfing the entire 330 million U.S. population. “Until we have that, we’re in big trouble,” Gates insisted. Gates’ solution echoes that of 80-year-old National Institutes of Health Chief of Allergy and Infectious Disease Chief Anthony Fauci, who’s become a loveable mascot at 73-year-old President Donald Trump’s daily coronavirus briefings. Fauci and State Depart immunologist Dr. Debra Birx have advocated extreme social distancing or “shelter in place” orders to stop the coronavirus spread. Fauci and Birx, like Gates, think only about stopping human-to-human spread that’s left the economy in ruins, something Gates doesn’t worry about.
Trump finds himself battling not the SARS CoV-2 epidemic that’s recorded 468,566 total cases with 16,681 deaths but his own medical experts. Total deaths from the 2019-2020 seasonal are up to 63,000. Yet infectious disease experts like Fauci and Birx didn’t call for the shutdown of the U.S. economy. Granted the novel coronsvirus is more contagious and lethal but it’s unrealistic to think that the U.S. economy can be shut down indefinitely because someone might contract the virus. Gates wants everyone in the United States to get tested, something both unrealistic and unnecessary since the virus itself will eventually run its course, no matter how many people get tested. When you consider that epidemiologists think that up to 50% of the population infected with the novel coronvirus have no symptoms, it makes you wonder about the risks of infection, even among the population with co-morbidities.
Gates advocates PCR [polymerases chain reaction] testing, something Abbott Laboratories has innovated with automated machines analyzing nasal swabs within 5 to 10 minutes. Gates thinks if “we get our act together countrywide and if the compliance is very high and that test including some innovations like a self-swab that our foundation had driven and those get into place early June, we’d be looking at some type of opening up,” Gates insists is the only way to open up the country. Gates’ overreaction sounds like a diagnosable case of mysophobia. While there’s nothing wrong with testing people who need it, most people who get coronavirus or seasonal flu don’t need testing, they need to stay at home and ride out the symptoms. If symptoms get worse, they may need to see a doctor or go to the hospital. Less than 10% of SARS CoV-2 cases require hospitalization.
Gates is in for a rude awakening when Trump and his coronavirus Task Force start relaxing “shelter in place” orders at the end of April. While it’s up to governors to decide whether to follow suit, it’s clear that testing every man, woman a child in the U.S. would have limited value. Like the seasonal flu, Covid-19 will run its course and improve on its own over time. “The PCR test . . that is the key to tracing contacts and really getting people to go into serious quarantine,” Gates said, arguing against serology [blood] tests because the results take too much time. Encouraging people to wear surgical-type masks, maintain social distancing, wash hands regularly or self-quarantine if needed is all anyone has to do to get back to business-as-usual. Gates may live in his own bubble but the average U.S. citizen must go to work to put food on the table and help finance his extravagance.
