Bill Gates on Trump call for quick end to lockdown: It’s tough to tell people ‘keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner’
Bill Gates told Vox Media during an interview that “it’s very irresponsible for somebody to suggest that we can have the best of both worlds,” referring to mitigating the impact of the deadly pathogen on human lives and keeping the economy whirring normally.
That's billionaire Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft (MSFT)and noted philanthropist, sharing in a TED interview as described by the Vox Media site Recode his view on the drumbeat, notably from President Donald Trump, for an earlier end to public health policies aiming to mitigate the spread of a deadly pandemic that has brought much of the world's business activity to a screeching halt.
Most of the U.S., including New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California, are under rules that limit movement and travel.
Those efforts to dull the impact of the outbreak of COVID-19 are putting the U.S. economy into a recession and have tanked U.S. equity markets that were just a month ago at record highs.
The illness that carried by the novel strain of coronavirus first identified in China in December has been contracted by some 414,000 people and killed more than 18,000 across the globe, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, as of Tuesday afternoon.
In the U.S., where the epidemic is likely still in its nascence, some 51,542 have been infected.
Trump, however, said on Tuesday during a Fox News interview in the White House Rose Garden that he hopes to have the country reopened as early as Easter on April 12, though most countries have taken months to achieve some semblance of managing the infection.
Trump has argued that a longer U.S. shutdown would make it more difficult for the economy to rebound from a recession. “The longer it takes, the longer we stay out, the longer that is to do,” he explained.
Most of the U.S., including New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California, are under rules that limit movement and travel.
Those efforts to dull the impact of the outbreak of COVID-19 are putting the U.S. economy into a recession and have tanked U.S. equity markets that were just a month ago at record highs.
The illness that carried by the novel strain of coronavirus first identified in China in December has been contracted by some 414,000 people and killed more than 18,000 across the globe, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, as of Tuesday afternoon.
In the U.S., where the epidemic is likely still in its nascence, some 51,542 have been infected.
Trump, however, said on Tuesday during a Fox News interview in the White House Rose Garden that he hopes to have the country reopened as early as Easter on April 12, though most countries have taken months to achieve some semblance of managing the infection.
Trump has argued that a longer U.S. shutdown would make it more difficult for the economy to rebound from a recession. “The longer it takes, the longer we stay out, the longer that is to do,” he explained.