Bill Gates warns Covid lockdowns could drag on into 2022

https://www.the-sun.com/news/1968632/bill-gates-warns-covid-lockdowns-2022/

25 54 6 years ago

maxharris3• 6 years ago

Remember when the New York Times tried to tell us a vaccine could take much longer than expected? Scroll down to "Assume We Already Understand the Coronavirus" and check "Start trials early" and "Don't wait for academic research" https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/30/opinion/coron...

person_of_color• 6 years ago

Uh, if you keep taking shortcuts (like we did), then it shortens it to Feb 21.

maxharris3• 6 years ago

Which proves the value of allowing innovation. When we put in too many regulations, we kill many more people than we save.

atonse2• 6 years ago

Even the most experienced people told us it'll take 18-24 months. This kind of progress is unprecedented and frankly quite amazing.

symlinkk• 6 years ago

It’s almost too good to be true isn’t it?

bewaretheirs• 6 years ago

Moderna finalized the "code" for the vaccine on January 13th, 2020, had synthesized the first clinical batch on February 7th, shipped it to the NIH on the 24th, and it was first administered to a human (in phase 1 trial) on March 16th.

https://www.modernatx.com/modernas-work-potential-vaccine-ag...

maxharris3• 6 years ago

Yes!

On November 22, the New York Times published a fascinating account of the race to produce a coronavirus vaccine. The Times report included a number of interesting facts, but one really grabbed my attention: It turns out that the Moderna vaccine, which was just shown to be 95 percent effective, was actually developed by the company in just two days in January 2020.

That’s right, they developed the vaccine in two days in January, but then needed to spend the following ten months performing tests in order to meet the FDA’s standards for vaccine safety and efficacy.

During those ten months, 1.3 million people, including a quarter million Americans, have died from the coronavirus.

From https://news.yahoo.com/release-vaccine-113037217.html

andyst• 6 years ago

You're misinterpreting this article by skipping to a certain section, each of the graphs and the options you select combine together.

root_axis• 6 years ago

So is your point that medical trials are a waste of time and we should have just started injecting the masses with something developed in two days?

Barrin923• 6 years ago

I've already seen people treat the vaccine as the end of the pandemic but I agree with Gates here, the next months are going to be brutal.

50% of Americans are apparently not willing to be vaccinated to begin with and rollout to significant parts of the population is going to take months.

While I'm obviously glad that vaccine development happened quickly, I really wish rather than being so focussed on vaccinations exclusively we paid more attention to the fact that some countries, Taiwan, China, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia have managed to quell the disease through correct social policy and appropriate levels of social coordination.

If every disaster will rely on us conjuring up a panacea we'll be screwed sooner or later.

volak• 6 years ago

Just wanted to point out that 3 of those 4 countries are surrounded by miles of open water/ocean. And the final one has been lying about the outbreak the entire time. https://www.independent.co.uk/world/covid19-china-mishandle-...

howlgarnish2• 6 years ago

You can add Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to the list, none of which are surrounded by ocean.

As for China, I don't think anybody trusts their figures, but it's also quite clear that they do have the outbreak well under control. If their ICUs were full, we'd know about it.

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 6 years ago

Vietnam got it under control quite well despite a land border with China. Key to success likely were:

- a population that had experience with prior pandemics and was thus willing to play along

- a strong centralized government (this is a guess, and I'm not just talking about the power, but specifically the centralization - other nations that have states/provinces each implementing their own policies showed the dangers of that approach, e.g. USA, Switzerland, Germany)

- extremely aggressive contact tracing and enforced quarantine (for high risk cases, they were put in hotels or barracks, not told "please stay home"). Not just contacts but also contacts-of-contacts (the latter were only ordered to home quarantine).

AFAIK they didn't even have much of a shutdown, because the quarantining was so effective.

philliphaydon• 6 years ago

4 of 5 countries.

Barrin923• 6 years ago

are surrounded by miles of open water/ocean

So is the UK, last time I checked they're not doing so hot either. You can add this kind of argumentation to the list of ailments. Geographic or some other sort of fatalism as an excuse for what is social failure.

Where you're located when a disease hits gives you either an advantage or a disadvantage, fair enough. But it doesn't explain away repeated and continuous inability to act. If NZ had acted like the UK, they'd look just the same. Once you've got community spread the virus doesn't care if you're on an island.

NonEUCitizen• 6 years ago

Five national governments. Taiwan is not lying. Don't confuse ROC with PRC.

93po• 6 years ago

Also worth noting that many "first world" countries are providing a lot of stimulus for workers - many countries covering 75%-100% of an out of work person's pay.

In the US we've had a single $1200 check. American families don't have the option to stop going to work and have to do anything they can.

It's no wonder this breeds resentment to anything the government says, including to wear masks.

ghshephard• 6 years ago

I wish that misinformation would stop spreading. The United States had a very generous unemployment benefit of $600/week. A huge number of people came out of the pandemic financially much better off in July (when the stimulus ended) than before.

throwaway208515• 6 years ago

50% of Americans are apparently not willing to be vaccinated to begin with and rollout to significant parts of the population is going to take months.

COVID-19, which is now endemic, will be here for the remainder of my lifetime. The vaccines have unknowns. I see less risk for both myself and family with avoiding the vaccines until there is strong data about their efficacy and safety.

While I'm obviously glad that vaccine development happened quickly, I really wish rather than being so focussed on vaccinations exclusively we paid more attention to the fact that some countries, Taiwan, China, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia have managed to quell the disease through correct social policy and appropriate levels of social coordination.

They're either islands, took authoritarian measures, or both. And again, an endemic virus that will only come back as soon as international travel comes back and lockdowns go away.

maxerickson4• 6 years ago

There is strong data about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.

We don't have long term data on either of course, but the data that has been collected so far paints a clear picture of safe, effective vaccines.

howlgarnish2• 6 years ago

The Economist has an interesting map of the world colored by predicted vaccination ability: https://i.redd.it/2fuq0qge0y461.jpg

TL;DR: Large parts of the world won't have vaccines available to the general population until 2023.

maxerickson4• 6 years ago

Can the US spend money to speed this along? With a vaccine or two in hand, I don't see why we wouldn't do it if it is possible. We'd easily make back $50 billion or whatever, it's not even an economic question.

Exmoor• 6 years ago

Whoever designed that map really had a grudge against people with red-green color blindness. I see two colors.

WillYouFinish• 6 years ago

I thought color blind people would configure the color blind mode in their OS? Is it not common or is it just bad?

mfDjB• 6 years ago

So I don't know if he is saying that lockdowns will "generally" continue on a global stage remain until 2022, or if he saying that there will be lockdowns "somewhere" in the world into 2022. Initially I take this to mean the former because of this statement in the article: "BILL Gates predicts global Covid-19 restrictions could last until 2022".

If this is the case could someone explain the reasoning here? The UK is expected to complete its vaccination program by April 2021 [1]. I can't imagine other Western countries will be very far behind them. I imagine the isolated nations such as AUS and NZ will allow travel with the necessary vaccination certificates [2].

I feel like I'm missing the link as to why lockdowns dragging on to 2022 is likely?

1: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-vaccin...

2: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/qantas-coronavirus-va...

unityByFreedom• 6 years ago

His main point seems to have been that the upcoming period will likely be worse than we've seen and that preventative measures like wearing masks, washing hands, and distancing will save lives.

I didn't see the context of the 2022 comment quoted in the article.

dyeje• 6 years ago

The Sun? Really HN? You're better than this.

just-juan-post• 6 years ago

The article is from The Sun, the video is from CNN.

derision• 6 years ago

Not sure that makes it any better

IronRanger• 6 years ago

At what point does this whole charade end?

valbaca• 6 years ago

What "charade"?

jeofken2• 6 years ago

Using government force to limit freedom of people for “safety” - as if government existed to be served, rather than to serve and protect the rights of free citizens.

In Sweden where we have no lockdown or similar there are no more deaths this year than other years, clearly showing that forcing people to lock down is not only immoral, but also inefficient.

Article in English but statistics from the public statistics bureau (SCB).

https://emanuelkarlsten.se/number-of-deaths-in-sweden-during...

abellerose• 6 years ago

I'm predicting a bit longer until laws start passing that mandate a legal requirement for all to get vaccinated for covid-19. I'm still unsure how long that will take, for it to come into law but I assume the vaccine will be pointless for stopping the virus spread and until everyone is being vaccinated. Basically, the ones that firstly get vaccinated will have to continue doing so until everyone if forced to follow. I could be wrong but I assume people not getting vaccinated will keep the virus going host to host and until the vaccination wears off; requiring another one and repeat.

jdhn• 6 years ago

Why do you think that the vaccine will have to be taken beyond its recommended dosage?

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 6 years ago

Wouldn't immune people getting exposed to the virus likely "refresh" the vaccination?

Bill Gates warns Covid lockdowns could drag on into 2022

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