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Bill Gates.
- Bill Gates participated in a Reddit AMA about the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday, fielding questions about testing in the US and a new report from Imperial College London.
- Gates has warned for years that infectious diseases are a major international threat.
- He said social distancing is necessary, but said a model that suggests 2.2 million Americans could die is too extreme.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Bill Gates took to Reddit on Wednesday to offer his perspective on the coronavirus pandemic in an "Ask Me Anything (AMA)" session.
One user asked Gates for his thoughts on a report published Monday by the Imperial College London's COVID-19 Response Team. The research models different response scenarios in the UK and US, and suggests that without action to suppress cases, 2.2 million Americans could die.
Gates replied that he thought the report's models used parameters that were "too negative."
"The experience in China is the most critical data we have. They did their 'shut down' and were able to reduce the number of cases," he wrote in the AMA. "They are testing widely, so they see rebounds immediately, and so far there have not been a lot. They avoided widespread infection. The Imperial model does not match this experience."
The Imperial College paper used data gathered from the coronavirus outbreak in Italy. The country has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths outside of China; on Wednesday, Italy reported 475 deaths in one day - the highest single-day coronavirus death toll ever seen in any country.
Gates stressed that to prevent an even greater surge in cases, the US will need a "shut down" that includes "a serious social distancing effort." He said that for developed countries, that could last about two to three months, but for developing countries where social distancing is harder, it could be longer.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Members of a crowd listening to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser speak at a news conference about the city's response to the coronavirus practice social distancing by standing a clear distance apart, on Monday, March 16, 2020.
Social distancing to fight the pandemic
Social distancing refers to actions that prevent the spread of disease by keeping people apart - behaviors like avoiding crowds and staying at home.
China's social-distancing policies have been the most extreme so far: Its lockdown affected 60 million residents in the Hubei province in the largest quarantine the world had ever seen.
In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend minimizing in-person interaction as much as possible and canceling or postponing gatherings of more than 50 people. President Donald Trump said in a press briefing on Monday that Americans should avoid gatherings of more than 10 people to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
Gates emphasized how important this social distancing is to "flatten the curve" - in other words, to slow the spread of the coronavirus so as not to overwhelm the healthcare system.
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"If you don't do this, then the disease will spread to a high percentage of the population and your hospitals will be overloaded with cases," Gates wrote. "So this should be avoided despite the problems caused by the 'shut down.'"
When another Reddit user asked why the entire US was not on lockdown yet, Gates responded that many parts of the country are entering lockdown now, such as parts of California and Colorado.
"We are going into lockdown, but as usual in retrospect we should have done it sooner," he wrote. "The sooner it is done, the easier it is to get the cases down to small numbers."
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Bill Gates (left) and Bill Clinton (right).
Bill Gates has warned of a pandemic for years
Gates has warned for years that infectious diseases are a major international threat, and that the world was not ready for a deadly pandemic.
He predicted last month - before the World Health Organization officially declared the coronavirus a pandemic - that the virus' spread would reach that scale.
"In the past week, COVID-19 has started behaving a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we've been worried about," Gates wrote in an op-ed for the New England Journal of Medicine on February 28. "I hope it's not that bad, but we should assume it will be until we know otherwise."
The Microsoft co-founder started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - the world's largest private philanthropic foundation - in 2000 to fund efforts to improve global public health. As the coronavirus pandemic ramped up, the foundation has committed $100 million to help with the COVID-19 response around the world, as well as $5 million to support its home state of Washington, which has been experiencing a surge in cases and has 1,187 patients.
- Read more:
- A report that helped convince Trump to take coronavirus seriously projected that 2.2 million people could die in the US if we don't act
- How Italy spiraled from a perfectly healthy country to near collapse in 24 days as the coronavirus took hold
- Italians share what they wish they'd done 10 days ago to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, from staying inside to listening to their mom's advice
- Italy is in a nationwide lockdown because of the coronavirus. Here are the rules its 60 million citizens now have to follow.
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