[Text/Observer Network Bai Ziwen] The COVID-19 epidemic in the United States is becoming more and more severe. Trump is more worried about the economic decline and hopes to "open the United States" before Easter (April 12). In this regard, Bill Gates mentioned China 6 times when participating in CNN’s “Global Town Hall” program on the 226th, emphasizing that the entire United States needs to adopt the strict blockade measures implemented by China for 6-10 Weeks’ time, and the idea of ​​resuming work before mid-April is completely unrealistic.
Gates also said that the economic losses caused by the epidemic will be in the "trillion-dollar" level, and if the world is prepared early, the economy will not be severely hit.
Screenshot of the video of Bill Gates accepting CNN's "Global Town Hall"
In this 34-minute interview, Gates said at the beginning that the countries that experienced SARS did the best in preventing and controlling the epidemic. , they responded promptly when the number of infections was very small.
When answering host Anderson Cooper (Anderson Cooper)'s question about when the epidemic in the United States will reach its peak, Gates took China as an example and replied, "The good news is that China has adopted very strict isolation and blockade measures. After 6 weeks of lockdown measures, their measures are still strict, even stricter than those of the best states in the United States. After 6 weeks, they have gradually reopened, and the overall number of infections has become very, very small. It's very good news. People take this as an example, look at China's data, look at South Korea's data, they have achieved good control."
Gates emphasized that the situation the United States is facing now is, " if does it. You're right, then it only needs to be done once and lasts for 6-10 weeks, but it must be done for the entire country. We must significantly improve the level of testing to ensure that the epidemic can be controlled by implementing the closure policy only once and avoid a large number of deaths." Gates said that strict blockade measures can prevent a large proportion of the population from being infected. "The examples of China and South Korea have already told us this fact."
Cooper asked Gates that some towns have expressed their desire to resume work as soon as possible, and there are currently many states with less than 200 confirmed cases. Should these states also adopt the same closure measures?
Gates replied, "Let's put it this way, for example, you have 100 confirmed cases now. If we don't stop work, the number of infections will increase by 33% every day. The number of confirmed cases will go from 100 to 1,000, to 10,000, doubling." Gates said that the earlier the closure measures are adopted, the easier it will be for the number of infections to reach the peak. "We have not yet reached the peak." Gates said that those places that have not implemented a lockdown may see it at the end of April. By the time the number of confirmed cases climbs to a high point, their peak numbers may be very high and cannot be predicted at present.
"In fact, it is precisely because of the problem with our testing that we did not prioritize testing. Those places with low infection numbers actually have patients. Even if they only find 100 cases, the number will rise. And , people will also move back and forth between towns. So basically, the entire country needs to take the same measures as the infected areas in China "
Gates believes that it makes sense to take lockdown measures, he said that China has already. They have paid a huge price to fight the epidemic, and they have now started work."
This is not the first time that Bill Gates has mentioned China when talking about the new crown epidemic. On March 18, he posted on the Reddit forum about When interacting with netizens on the prevention and treatment of the new coronavirus epidemic, he once said that " new coronavirus " should not be called the "Chinese virus" and believed that China has done a good job in testing and isolation, effectively preventing the spread of the virus. , and testing in the United States was still unorganized at that time. He believed that the model parameters of Imperial College predicting that "1.4 million Americans would die" were too negative, and China's experience was the most critical data they could obtain.
In the CNN interview, host Cooper also asked about "resuming work before Easter" that Trump is concerned about.
"Well, I don't want to politicize this issue," Cooper said. "It's always good to have good hopes, but people should also understand that in early or mid-April, can everyone go to church to celebrate Easter? And whether work can get back on track. Your view seems to be that this is not possible."
Gates: "No, this is not realistic. The number of confirmed cases is still rising! Only when these things are expected can come true."
Gates said that there are still some good things happening, such as vaccines being developed. "In the long run, vaccines are the key." In addition, regarding the question of whether there are enough professionals to help people collect nasopharyngeal test specimens, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated on Monday that for testing through test collection, self-testing and medical staff help The test is "equally accurate", so more and more people will be tested through "self-collected test specimens".
"The number of confirmed cases in the United States is now the highest. No state has flattened or declined the curve of confirmed cases, and the current testing capacity prevents us from knowing for sure how many undetected cases there are. Therefore, resumption of work is possible, but It is unrealistic to want to do it in mid-April."
In the interview, the host asked Sanjay Gupta to tell Gates that although Gates believes that the United States will recover from the new crown epidemic. What can we learn from the outbreak to prepare for the next outbreak? “But reality keeps slapping us in the face,” Gupta said. “We see that people don’t even care about their own personal health, let alone public health. ”
Gates said, “Speaking of slaps in the face, what is happening now is something I never thought of in my life. We must change our lifestyles and make huge economic sacrifices to save lives.” This crisis will cause "trillion-dollar" economic losses. "They have already come up with a 2 trillion stimulus package and are still discussing the introduction of more stimulus packages. It will probably cost billions of dollars to study how to deal with the next epidemic." , but that is nothing compared to the economic price paid now. If the world had been prepared earlier, it would not have paid such a high price. ”
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