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With the benefit of hindsight, there probably isn’t a country in the world that wouldn’t do things differently with regards to its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some countries have learnt quicker than others, though, which is why the US was still experiencing upwards of a thousand COVID-19 related deaths on certain days in August.

When you see videos like this, displaying complete and utter ignorance, it’s no wonder.

The country is expected to tick over the 200 000 death mark at some stage this week, with the UK death toll surpassing 41 000.

In a recent interview with the Telegraph, Bill Gates expressed apprehension that if governments don’t take effective action, “the death rate in a number of countries including the United States will go back up to the levels that we had in the spring”.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, thankfully, with Gates stating that he was optimistic the world could see the back of COVID-19 by 2022.

Yes, two years away:

“By next summer, we’ll be getting vaccines out to all the countries of the world,” he said. “Even at a 60 per cent vaccination level, you should be able to stop almost all of the exponential disease spread.

“So, you know, I’m optimistic that next year will be the year that we bring the numbers down very, very dramatically, and that this thing will be over by sometime in 2022.”

When pressed on how well he thought certain countries had handled things, Gates was critical of Sweden’s approach, but said that only time would tell if their more relaxed approach works out.

His harshest criticism was saved for the US and the UK:

In the US, he contrasted the investment his country had made in the race to find a vaccine – “far, far more funding than everyone else put together” – with its failure to quickly roll out testing and get an early grip on the outbreak…

“The UK and the US will have a lot of examination to do to look back and say, okay, what should we have done differently so that when pandemic two comes we get really good tests and quick turnaround overnight.”

Gates also had harsh words for the US decision to pull out of the WHO, which President Trump accused of being under China’s control:

 “One of the great ironies is that if you ask: ‘hey, does the WHO have a particularly strong relationship with some country? Is there some country that is in the hallways and influencing what goes on in the WHO?’ The answer is, ‘absolutely, yes’. That country is the United States of America.

“There is no UN organisation that is more associated with a single country than the WHO is associated with the United States,” he said.

I think future generations will look at one of the great ironies of our time being how developed, first-world places like the US and the UK fell under the control of mop-haired leaders without a clue how to govern effectively.

Bill Gates didn’t mention his plans to implant tracking microchips into the world’s population via vaccines, because that’s not a real thing and you’re seriously detached from reality if you think that’s the case.

[source:telegraph]