Bill Gates urges Congress to spend $4B for COVID-19 vaccines in poor countries
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is urging Congress to vote on spending at least $4 billion for COVID-19 vaccines in poorer countries.
According to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's 2020 Goalkeeper report, Gates said there had not been so many countries in a recession simultaneously since 1870, he told The New York Times.
He cited the period between 1990 and 2020, where the global poverty rate — which is defined as living on less than $2 a day — fell to less than 7 percent from 37 percent.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, 37 million people fell back below the poverty line, the Goalkeeper report estimated.
The report concluded that as much as twice as many fatalities due to COVID-19 could be prevented if vaccines were distributed based on countries' population size rather than the top 50 wealthiest nations.
His comments come as U.S. COVID-19 cases, which have surged for months during the pandemic this year, have started to decline while cases are surging exponentially in India.
Case rates in India have shown reports of increases of more than 80,000 new infections a day for the past seven days, bringing the country's total to 4,846,427 total cases and 79,722 fatalities, Johns Hopkins University reported.
Last month, the Gates Foundation invested in providing low- to middle-income countries $3 COVID-19 vaccines.
Gates said he would like to lobby for an additional $4 billion in spending on the upcoming coronavirus stimulus package still under debate between Congress and the Senate.
"It's my disposition," he said. "Plus, I've got to call these people up and make the pitch to them that this really makes sense — and I totally, totally believe it makes sense."
Tags Bill Gates COVID-19 pandemic COVID-19 vaccine Pandemics Public Health Emergency of International Concern
Bill Gates questions whether FDA can be trusted on vaccine
By Zack Budryk - 09/15/20 10:44 AM EDT
© getty: Bill GatesMicrosoft founder Bill Gates questioned whether a coronavirus vaccine approved by theFood and Drug Administration (FDA) could be trusted as safe and effective, telling Bloomberg TV the agency has been politicized under the Trump administration.
Gates specifically cited FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn touting blood plasma as a potential treatment, only to reverse himself a day later.
“We saw with the completely bungled plasma statements that when you start pressuring people to say optimistic things, they go completely off the rails. The FDA lost a lot of credibility there,” Gates told the outlet.
“Historically, just like the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] CDC was viewed as the best in the world, the FDA had that same reputation as a top-notch regulator,” he added. “But there’s been some cracks with some of the things they’ve said at the commissioner level.”
Amid concerns over a potentially rushed vaccine, nine pharmaceutical companies signed a joint pledge not to submit any vaccine without confidence in its safety and efficacy earlier this month.
“These companies are very professional and the benefits of the vaccine here are very dramatic,” Gates told Bloomberg TV. “Thank goodness that we have this private-sector expertise that we want to shape into a global public good that gets to everybody on the planet.”
President Trump has repeatedly suggested a vaccine will be available before Election Day, contradicting most health experts who have said it is more likely to be ready next year. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, has suggested she would not trust the safety and efficacy of a vaccine on Trump’s word alone.
“It would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about,” Harris told CNN earlier this month.
Biden, meanwhile, said last week that he “would want to see what the scientists said” but would take a vaccine “tomorrow” if it was available.
“We need a vaccine and we need it now,” Biden said in Lancaster, Pa. “We have to listen to the scientists."
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