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Short Stuff: The Return of Bill Gates! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: there's Bill Gates. No time to explain, this is short stuff.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Let's get to it. Uh, thanks for coming back and
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: joining us, Bill to talk about COVID and vaccines and therapeutics,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we've got a short window here,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: so let's dive right in. And I guess my first
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: question is, let's just kind a level said and find
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: out where we are with vaccines and how it all
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: works with multiple vaccines being worked on, and how that
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: kind of goes in the end. Well, there's fortunately a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: lot of different vaccine constructs using uh, most of the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: approaches that we know. And as we get these out
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: in larger human studies and eventually have a Human Emergency
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Youth Thought authorization, we'll start to understand for the various
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: candidates how much they prevent disease transmission, how much they
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: prevent often you get sick, whether they work in the elderly,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: and what type of duration they have, And so they'll
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: be quite a range on those parameters for these vaccines.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: You know, eventually we want one that's both very good
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: at transmission blocking and preventing sickness. And hast duration and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: is cheap so that we get out to a large
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: part of the entire global population and bring the pandemic
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: to an end. One of the things that you you
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: um brought up though, is that we want like all
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of these different factors that make basically like a perfect vaccine. Um.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: But I read one of your posts on your Gates
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Notes blogs and you said that that's probably not going
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to happen right out of the gate. Is there a
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: benefit from having multiple vaccines kind of working in conjunction
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: or is it the best route to just kind of
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: keep going after that that magic perfect vaccine that that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: works as close to perfect as we can get. Well,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: particularly for the developing countries, we won't be able to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: afford to go out a whole lot of times. And
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: so uh, you know, the US has funded a lot
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: of the R and D. Our Foundation and a group
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: were part of called SEPPI is also funded R and D,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: but well less than what the US itself has done,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: and that's got a really good pipeline. You know, the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: astro Seneca probably will come out first, then Johnson and Johnson,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: then Novavax, then Sonofie. Those are the ford that are
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: most promising because they're they're clearly low cost Maderna and
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Visor in that same time frame, but probably pretty expensive
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and may only end up being used in rich countries.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So that's that's the It's a question of affordability, not
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: necessarily efficacy. Yeah, well, of the six, the likelihood that
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: they all work without side effects is pretty low. Now
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the Phase one studies, that's pretty small numbers, and you're
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: not going out to find sick people, but there you
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: can see what the antibody response looks like. And if
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: you use some very advanced tools, you can look at
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: the other side of the immune system, the T cell side,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and try and gauge what type of responses you're getting there.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And I have to say that all these vaccines look
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: pretty good. You know, the Nova vacts which just came
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: out this week, has the best numbers. But uh, you know,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: we're this kind of respiratory disease. Protecting your lungs is
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: easier than many other vaccination tasks like malaria or hivar
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: or TV. So, I mean, I hate to keep harping
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: on the multiple vaccine thing, but are we looking at
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a situation in six eight months to a year where
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: families are going to have to research which one works
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: best or is it sort of a regional availability or
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: monetary availability, how will that work? Well, certainly in the
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: United States, the government will have a clear opinion about
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the first one that's rolling out, and you know, if
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: that first vaccine adds enough transmission blocking, then you what
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: you have is you have whatever previous protection we get
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: from other coronavirus family viruses and the immunity we get
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: from the natural infection for this coronavirus, plus whoever we vaccinate,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and so between those three you can get up to
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: her immunity where the total number of cases is very small,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: pretty quickly, probably adding to the US population to the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: vaccinated would do that. And so that's you know, seventy
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: million people to be vaccinated, and almost all these vaccines
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: unfortunately going to require two doses, so that's a hundred
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: and forty million doses. The various UH efforts are building
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: their factories in parallel, at least with the scale for
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the United States. We're trying to make sure factories get
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: built for the entire world, which is you know, the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: US is only five percent of the world's population, so
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: that's a twenty times harder problem, and the rest of
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the world is not as rich. Getting enough money is
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: very difficult. The US is one of the countries where
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: you could decide to go with the first generation vaccine
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: and then decide that its efficacy was limited enough that
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you would four months later, uh say no, now you
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: also need to go and get this vaccine after all.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: You know, the economic damage we're trying to put an
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: end to is trillions and trillions, and you know, making
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: these vaccines and deploying them, assuming there's no side effects, Uh,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: that's just billions, So you know, it's it's highly leveraged,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: uh investment. You you, I mean you kind of mentioned that.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: You know, we also need to be focusing on other
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: parts of the world too, low and middle income countries. Um,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: who can't necessarily afford to throw billions of dollars at
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: this problem. Um, How how do we help other countries
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and other human beings that just don't happen to live
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: in the United States or Canada or the UK or Australia.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: How do we help them? Is it just a matter
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: of direct aid? Is it a matter of sharing research?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Is a matter of just pumping out a bunch of
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: doses and shipping them over there. Or is it a
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: thing where if we in the United States pay a
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: bunch of money for a vaccine, that's going to make
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: it that much more likely for the farmer companies to
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: sell it for lower no cost to other countries. What's
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the economic to that. Yeah, Typically the vaccine companies for
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the poorest countries, developing countries that a group called gobby
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: that we support and the US government other government support
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: it does the bind uh for these poor countries. The
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: vaccine manufacturers agree that they're not getting any profit, nor
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: are they getting any recovery for their fixed costs. Their
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: R and D and trial type costs are just getting
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: uh close to that marginal cost. And that makes sense
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: because they're they're not giving up something they would get otherwise.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And so all these manufacturers will have tiered pricing. The
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: price to the rich countries, middle income countries, and the
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: poorest countries will be different. Uh. Some of the companies
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: have agreed to make no profits, so when they price
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: to the rich in the middle income, they'll just recover
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: their fixed costs. Uh. And the poor countries. It's just
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: that that marginal cost. A number of these constructs look
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: like they'll be around two dollars per dose. Uh, perhaps
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: even less. Uh. Yeah, many of these constructs are very productive,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: including the aDNA virus which is astro Centeca and J
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and J and the subunit protein which is UH includes
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Novavax and the Sonofi approaches. There are a name platform
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: which you can think, I'm kind of leaving that out,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: you know, in the long rum, we're very enthusiastic about
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: that because the speed of development and having generic factories
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: even when you don't know which pathogen you're going after,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: will work very well for that. So we've been funding
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: that for about a decade. Unfortunately, it's in terms of
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: scaling up the manufacturing and a port portion of it
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: called the lipid, the costs are still higher than these
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: other approaches. So for the big world, I doubt those
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: vaccines uh, which includes Maderna and Visor Bio and tech,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I doubt they'll they'll play much of a role. And
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about just now, you you're talking about
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: different types of vaccines that are being tested. So there's
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: an RNA vaccine that Maderna is working on that UM
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: has never a vaccine has never been produced using RNA, right,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that's right. This would be the first one. Can you
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: can you just talk a little bit about how an
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: RNA vaccine differs from you know, saying a dina virus
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: vaccine or even a flu vaccine. Well, RNA is the
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: name of these molecules that are like the software code
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: that tell yourselves what proteins to manufacture, and you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: so the software idea here is that instead of actually
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: sending the particles for the immune system to recognize and
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: get ready to attack, you actually send some lines of
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: instructions the RNA that tell your own cells to make
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that protein, and then once they make it, then the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: immune system sees that and so the amount of URNA
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you need to send could be way smaller because the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: instructions are smaller than the actual proteins themselves. Now, we
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: still have to package up the RNA to get it
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: inside the cells, and that creates some cost. That's the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: so called lipid But the basic idea UH is really
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: brilliant and in the future of vaccines, UH this will
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: be a critical way to bank vaccines because the speed
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and the cost will get figured out and you'll just
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: have these general factories. Whether it's UH for malaria, or
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: cancer vaccines, and so it's great Maderna and Byron Tech careback.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: These are companies that were founded based on using that
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: particular approach. Well, let's take a quick break, everybody, and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: we will be right back with Bill Gates. How closely?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And I think the answer I want to hear is
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: that we've never seen a response like this as far
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: as sharing of research. But how closely is the international
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: research community working together? And have we seen anything like this? No,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: it's quite novel. Um. And what we're gonna have is
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the company who invents a vaccine is going to allow
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: other companies to use their factories to do the manufacturer.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: So we scale up very quickly to this billions of doses.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: And that's never been done before. And so we're our
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: foundation because we have a lot of that expertise, people
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: who have spent their careers at these private sector companies.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: We're able to broker through our relationships with the companies
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and the governments how that works. So, for example, two
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: of the companies in India have big capacity, but they're
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: unlikely to invent one of these vaccines. But Serum and
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: bioe are these two companies, and so we're giving money
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to them and making sure the licensing and cooperation is
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: such that they can latch onto whichever of the other
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: companies work looks promising and be there to to make
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of the volume. So yes, I'm very pleased
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: with the cooperation. We didn't practice for this the way
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: we should have, either the governments or the private sector.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: But uh, you know, my days are mostly those conversations
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: which everybody has a good attitude. Uh. You know, very
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: few people are being greedy about this, most being willing
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: to do things in a very novel high speed way. Now,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: just follow up on that. It seems to me as
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: an optimist, that that could present a new way forward
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: for humanity, for things to work together on things that
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: aren't necessarily uh COVID nineteen related. Is that is that
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: naive and foolish or or could this be a good
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: opportunity for something like that? Well, it's a little bit naive,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: and that the economic comparative of a coronavirus vaccine is
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: a stronger market signal than you've ever seen for any disease.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: It's costing economies trillions of dollars. It's you know, the
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: US alone has put out already three trillion and relief money,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and they're talking about additional trillions, and so the net
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: gain from being bringing this epidemic to an end in
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: economic terms is very clear. Whereas a lot of the
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: diseases we need vaccines for are just in poor countries,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: are mostly in poor countries where the rich countries, Like
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: tuberculosis or malaria is basically not seen in any rich country,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: so they're the economic comparative isn't great. And that's where
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: our foundation, uh you know, for HIV, we and the
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: U S governments are the big funders. For milaria, we're
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the big funder. There is no market signal and you know,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: in a way, it's terrible that this disease hit the
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: rich world, but whatever, somebody in the rich world gets sick. Wow,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: then uh, you know, resources are put into play in
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: a way that is you know, just incredible. So, um,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: I should I feel like I should probably preface this,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: But there are some people you may not be aware
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of this. There are some people who are wary of vaccines,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and um, there there's a possibility that some people might
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: feel wariness toward covid um vaccine in particular because everything
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: is is being stepped up as quickly as possible. UM.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that I've run into is
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: this idea that um, it might not even work. That
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you go in for a flu vaccine
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and you still get the flu that year. Um. Can
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you kind of talk about how how that differs and
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: how it would be more effective than say, like your
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: average flu vaccine, how the two are different. Yeah, there's
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: two problems with the flu vaccine. One is that there
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: are multiple varieties of flu that circulate, and as you
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: get into flu season, we try by going to China,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: where most flues originate, to sample what's there and make
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: a two or three components seasonal flu vaccine, but we
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: often miss the strain that UH is most prevalent during
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a season, and the way those flu vaccines are made,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: they're not very effective and elderly people. And that's really
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: bad because the flu mostly kills old people very similar
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: in the age profile two COVID. And so here we
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: are in the trials for this vaccine making sure it
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: works well and old people, because otherwise the sickness protection
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: thing is almost useless. But flu is very difficult. It's
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: constantly emerging in new forms and reassorting this disease. There's
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: one target. The genetic variation is very, very minor, So
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the vaccine will be able to target every coronavirus that
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: we've seen, and once we get rid of it, it
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: won't be crossing over into humans on a regular basis. Uh.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: You know, we could go a long long time before
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: we would ever see it again, and then we'll have
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: surveillance and catch it when it's small numbers. Now, you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: it's important to talk about vaccines. I think that's the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: sort of um carrot dangling in front of the world.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: But what about therapeutics. I know that's something that we
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: don't hear enough of probably in the news. Where where
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: are we with therapeutics and where can we go with therapeutics? Well,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the doctors are way better at treating COVID patients now
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: than at the start. They're not as overloaded. They realize
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: that you don't use the ventilator nearly as much because
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: it has bad side effects. They use oxygen earlier, they
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: use the chrome position. The two drugs that are being
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: used ramdasevere, which is an anti viral, and Dexi methos on,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: which was proven out in a trial we funded in
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: the UK is a immune modulator. There are two other
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: anti virals that are actually as promising as ramdasevere and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: actually could be used orally, which is much easier. There's
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: monoclonal antibodies where uh dozens of companies are working on that,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: but Regeneran, Eli, Lilly and Astro Seneca have the three
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that are leading the way there. And you know, by
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the time we get more anti virals, monclone antibodies and
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: some improved immune modulators, we could cut the death rate
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: by eight to nine. And testing therapeutics is easier because
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you just take a few hundred sick people and if
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: you're going to have substantial results, you you know, a
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: hundred at the intervention a hundred don't uh, you'll see,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: you know, significant variance between those and so yes, the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: death rate will come down quite a bit, well before
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: we get the vaccine out in the large numbers to
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: stop dropping the case numbers. Great um, Bill, you kind
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of referenced a point in time that is on everyone's mind,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: but I think it seems kind of amorphous, which is
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the point where we have viable vaccine and good treatments.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: What does the world with coronavirus look like after that,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: does it just like disappeared, does it hit a reservoir,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: does it come back seasonally? What? What is what is
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: it going to look like? And then how far off
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: are we from that goal of reaching that that world.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: If we get this cheap vaccine um and it's not
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: only safe, but everybody uh knows that it's safe, so
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: they're willing in large numbers to take the vaccine. And
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: if we get the generosity that the rich countries are
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: along with our foundation are funding the vaccine so it's
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: uh available even in the developing countries, we can truly
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: bring this into an end where it won't be coming back. Uh,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: You'll get rid of all the pockets the disease or
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: in you'll be willing to go to big public events
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and then will monitor to see if it if something
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: similar is crossing over and catch that very quickly. We
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: might not hang around with bats quite as much uh
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: as we do now. Uh these live markets where uh
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: this crossover almost certainly took place. But you know, I'm
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: spending a lot of time getting the US to provide
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: money to help buy the vaccine for other countries. Historically,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the US has been super generous. You know, we we
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: drove smallpox eradication, we fund the polio effort that's near
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: to completion on HIV and malaria. We've been super generous here.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: The leadership has been distracted and not wanting to talk
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: about the epidemics, so we haven't gotten the money yet.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: But I'm optimistic that'll get solved by the Congress because
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: it's hitting both people. It's hitting both the bleeding hearts
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you care about human lives, and it's hitting both the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: hard cases you care about the bottom line. Huh, it's
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the humanitarian argument, the strategic argument of not creating a
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: vacuum for China and others, and the selfish argument of hey,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: we don't want it coming back again and again. You know,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: countries like Australia, South Korea that did a competent job,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: even they have found it hard that everybody was coming
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: into the country potentially can start up a chain of
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: infection again. So uh, you know, they're doing great, but
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: they have to keep fighting and fighting and and doing
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: local shutdowns. Whereas if if they the rest of the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: world had done what they've done, you know, they they
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: could go and and have their economy in a normal state. Yeah,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned the live markets and the crossover
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: and sort of the problems with that. What um, what
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: does that future look like? And what can we do
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: about it? As Americans? Are we working with China? Are
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: they willing to close these things down? Like? How is
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: all that going to work? Yeah? A lot of species
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: of bats are there south of Wuhan uh, and you know,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the cross protection from related cornervirces may explain why vietnamal
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that they've certainly done a good job. You know, they
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: just had their first death, and so coronaviruses do come out,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and if you're looking with modern tools, you'll see it
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: when the numbers are very small. So those uh, you know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: making sure the exposures to bats are reduced, it reduced,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and that the surveillance is very strong. And then once
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: you see meaningful spread, then kicking up a sort of
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: what I call mega testing diagnostic capability that is all
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: very doable and and so we won't suffer from a
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: coronavirus being widespread like this again, we will really have
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: our act together for pretty modest level of resources. Chuck,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I have one last question. Do you have any anymore?
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: I got one more, but you go first. Okay, well,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: well my bill was um, and I'm presuming here. I
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: hope I'm not overly presuming that it's okay for me
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: to call you Bill. Sure at this point, Okay, I
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: probably should have verified that before. But UM, what I
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: think people are there's like an inherent suspicion or suspiciousness
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: that I think people can can kind of lean towards
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: when they encounter a mind bogglingly wealthy person who um,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: wants to help eradicate disease around the world and uses
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: their money for that end. Um, So what is it
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that that interested you that kind of took you from
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, pioneering computers to pioneering eradicating disease around
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: the world. What was that was that Melinda's influence? Was
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: that something that you've always been interested in? What? What?
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: What's the deal? Well, like your listeners, I I'm curious
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: to understand things. And so as I was uh starting
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: to wind down, uh and spend a little bit less
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: time on my Microsoft work, I was reading. I was thinking, Okay,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: how can I give this wealth back to society? Uh?
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: And I was learning about what kills children and I
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: was stunned that there were diseases that we had solutions for,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: we had vaccines for, but uh, millions would die of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: those diseases because they weren't affordable to the poor countries,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: even though the cost of manufacturer was very, very low.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And so I saw that Melinda and I could focus
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: on global health and get the death rate down, which
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: amazingly encounterintuitively reduces population growth because parents, when they know
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: their kids are likely to survive, have less children. And
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: so that quest, you know, which involved creating this gobby
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: organization to help buy the vaccines. Overall, the under five
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: death rate has gone from ten percent now down to
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: about five globally, and you know, so that's you know,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: that's mind blowing. It was over ten million children here
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: now less than then five million a year, and we
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: have a clear path with a few new vaccines to
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: get down to two and a half million two and
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: a half percent. Uh, and even rich countries are close
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to one percent. So you're getting pretty close to the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: kind of equity that any child point anywhere, their life
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: is treated as having value. Now on this journey, you
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I've gotten to learn about the immune system
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and meet great scientists, and so I love the work. Uh,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: you know, it gives purpose to how we take the
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Microsoft money and get it back out to the world
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: because we don't need it for our consumption. And you know,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: so this work in partnership with me Linda has been
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a great joy to me. Uh So, I guess in
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: finishing up, I mean, you know, you've been pretty busy
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: being Bill Gates Superhero during this time. I'm curious though
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: about you know, you've been locked down like the rest
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: of us. What's what is Bill Gates human being been doing?
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Have you had any fun? What have you guys been doing?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: What have you been up to? Well, you know, in
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: a way, Uh, I don't know what the kids think,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: but we've got more time with our kids than we
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: would have expected, including one that's at medical school, one
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: that's uh at University of Chicago and college and so
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: you know, lots of family game nights. Uh. You know,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I'm using the team software from Microsoft and Zoom and
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: some of the others, and so I'm giving a lot
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: of feedback to the Microsoft team that now this this
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: has becomes so mainstream, let's make it easy to take
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: notes and review the slides and search through A previous
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: meeting to see what was done. You know, so the
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: rated innovation the software will be up to quite a bit. Uh.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: You know, it's been simple for me to meet with
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: leaders because they don't expect to show that you're serious
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: that you have to fly all the way there. And
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: even for these African leaders there they're the most stuck.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: They have to fly to the US and fly to Europe,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: so they're they're able to stay in their countries and
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: get more of their work done. Uh. So you know
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: how once it's all over, we realized, Wow, some of
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: those trips our time in the office wasn't necessary. That
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: is pretty fascinating that it's really accelerated rethinking office work
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: and business travel. Uh. And you know we really can
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: uh save a lot of the overhead from those things.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: But you know, I've gotten to read more than normal, uh,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: you know, less jet legg than normal. Uh. Any particular
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: books that you've been that you've you've enjoyed most Uh
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I was just reading Zeke Emmanuel has one
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: about which is the best health system in the world
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: that does a good job of talking about the strengths
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: and weaknesses. You know, where the US has a lot
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of weakness is but has you know big chance to
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to get better? Um, well, we're working on a stuff
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: you should know board game, Bill, so we'll make sure
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the Gates family gets one. Fantastic I'd love that, maybe
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: even signed. All right, Chuck, you got anything else? I
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: got nothing else. Thanks a lot, sir, it's great talking
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: to you again. Yeah, thank you, Bill. But wait, Bill,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: do you have anything else? No? Uh uh, you know.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks for feeding people's curiosity. You guys do a great job. Hey, well,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: thank you for saving the world from doing a great
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: job too. Well. Since we just made Bill Gates lap,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: that's it for short stuff. Everybody's short stuff is out.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
• 29:48
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• 29:51
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