are not wealthy and you have, with other ceos and other health care officials and the bill and melinda gates foundation, signed a letter essentially saying you are committed to making certain it does not go to only wealthy people and people in the united states. can you explain why you wanted to have that letter and how you are going to make sure that happens? alex: the only way we beat the virus is if we have global distribution, and no one is safe , frankly, if the entire world is not provided access. so we are absolutely committed to doing this in a very ethical and very just way, and we worked very hard to make agreements clearly with governments like the united states, europe, japan, the developed countries, but we are also working hand-in-hand with other pharmaceutical companies, the bill and melinda gates foundation to ensure that developing countries also have got access. david: looking back, what would you say that the cdc or fda or the white house or hhs should have done differently? alex: almost all of us have underestimated the dramatic impact of this outbreak. ♪ david: so as we

and she didn't give him a good review when when we melinda gates.t trump decided not to participate in covax and for the united states to go it alone instead with its own program called operation warp speed. >> no, that is not the smart approach. the u.s. should be not only participating but should be a leader at the table. i was asked earlier during the pandemic for a specific rating and i gave a d-minus as a response. i would say it hasn't changed. if you're running a company there's the old adage of the buck stops here with the ceo. the buck stops with the leader of our country so you lay this at his feet. he could have created a national testing plan with good contact tracing, isolation and quarantine. vietnam did that. look at their numbers. they're outstanding. look at germany. look at new zealand. we should expect that of our leader not what we have been getting. >> reporter: what we have been getting is mixed messages from the president, what some have claimed as disinformation about the virus simply going away, that a vaccine is just around

we have many non-governmental organizations, like the bill and melinda gates foundation, like gaby and kovacs. and i think that's all going to have an influence on how this is priced because the whole world is really suffering because of this pandemic. and i do think that the, that the bulk of the incentive is to make this as affordable a vaccine as possible. and there's going to be a lot of funds available to purchase this vaccine. and i think that we likely will see the world on a, on a slower scale than what's happening in the developing countries get vaccinated within hopefully we will eradicate this virus as a lookout threat. ok, well that's very positive that i just want to be clear about what it is that you're saying there. so, you know, when i, when you talk about the price there, you're talking about the price that countries a paid, the pharmaceutical companies, all the price which it is passed on to consumers because pharmaceutical companies, of course, not, no for their charitable instincts. i think it's what we're going to see is probably very little out of pocket cost to t

we have many non-governmental organizations, like the bill and melinda gates foundation, like gaby and kovacs. and i think that's all going to have an influence on how this is priced because the whole world is really suffering because of this pandemic. and i do think that the, that the bulk of the incentive is to make this as affordable a vaccine as possible. and there's going to be a lot of funds available to purchase this vaccine. and i think that we likely will see the world on a, on a slower scale than what's happening in the developing countries get vaccinated within hopefully we will eradicate this virus as a health threat. ok, well that's very positive that i just want to be clear about what it is that you're saying there. so, you know, when i, when you talk about the price there, you're talking about the price that countries a paid, the pharmaceutical companies, all the price which it is passed on to consumers because pharmaceutical companies, of course, not known for their charitable instincts. i think it's what we're going to see is probably very little out of pocket cost to

it is interesting, because i think melinda gates supports this call as well.y impacted by this pandemic and want to take about ways in which to address that and to mitigate the inequities, the economic inequities, the health inequities, and one of those ways is to make sure the vaccine is available to the populations most ha rd—hit. vaccine is available to the populations most hard-hit. this is not a biological distinction, this is predominantly an economic distinction. yeah, ithink is predominantly an economic distinction. yeah, i think it is important to recognise, and the way that we looked at this was not based on race and biology but really based on race and biology but really based on what are the reasons that people are more at risk for getting this virus or more at risk for having serious consequences, if the infection, if they do in fact acquire the infection, and those risk are really more socioeconomic. they are the jobs people hold, risk are really more socioeconomic. they are thejobs people hold, the homes people live in, the ability to work from

if you have done more to support personal and public health than the bill and melinda gates foundationhairman bill gates. move take on how we can beyond this pandemic to start making plans to prevent a better -- to start making provide a better response to the next one. >> we now have two vaccines on the market with 95% effectiveness supposedly. for people around the world, what is a reasonable timetable to expect going forward now? when do we expect a reasonable number of people to be covered by this? bill: the mrna vaccines which did such a great job of getting into trials quickly, and now are being approved, they are the hardest to scale up in volume and reducing cost, but because the pfizer antibody levels were about middle of the pack, it means that johnson & johnson and even astrazeneca, which was slightly below, are very likely to work. those are vaccines that are low cost, don't have the cold chain requirements, and we have factories that are by far higher alreadyhat in the u.s. standing by to make novavax's and johnson & johnson's. so if we can get those three in addition to p

he is now the co-chair of the bill and melinda gates foundation.he foundation has been deeply focused on finding a vaccine for covid-19, among many other health issues. bill, welcome back to the show. >> thank you. >> so, first, give us a sense, where are we? we see these numbers. they seem to be rising obviously. there is an exponential growth issue. but, on the other hand, the death rate has come down. hospitalization is rising but sort of manageable. i am trying to get from you how worried should we be about the next two months? >> we should be very worried about the next six months. the case numbers are going up a lot. and while the age profile of those cases is somewhat younger, which cuts the death rate and the ability to treat, we are going to have just so many cases that the death rate will get up over 2,000 for a lot of this winter period. >> do you think that means that we are going to inevitably have to move towards some kind of a second series of real lockdowns? >> well, lockdowns are only as good as the adherence to those lockdowns are

microsoft cofounder and cochair of the bill and melinda gates foundation because the country's failureo control the virus "mind blowing." bill: if they funded more r&d, not just for u.s.-based companies, but for companies around the world including a lot of these european constructs, and you know, that was a good thing. that was a favor to the world. the rest of it, the u.s. is at the back of the pack. the diagnostic we did, the messaging, even today, the messaging is reaching a new level of incoherence. >> going to come back to vaccines but you look at the numbers. i just looked again on the bloomberg virus tractor. look at the deaths for every million people, america is close to 750 deaths. china, the other great participant, is around three deaths. for every million people. one number may be a bit over counted. the other, a bit undercounted. by any measure, one country has done enormously better than the other. why has the u.s. been so bad compared with other people? bill: i don't think comparing china and the u.s. is that helpful, because the china -- china has a more authoritarian

. >> bill and melinda gates have donated $6 billion to vaccination programs over the last 20 years.one more to champion the development of a covid vaccine. >> even if you vaccinate the entire midwest of the united states or every single person in our country, if you could get everybody to accept a vaccine, if you still have covid raging in another country, it's going to bounce back into our borders. >> viruses don't know borders, don't need visas, passports. as long as not all countries are free of covid, no country is safe. >> if i've taken the vaccine, i'm safe. why do i care if the country to my north or south has the vaccine or not? >> vaccines are not going to be the silver bullet. it's unlikely that certainly the first generation of vaccines are going to protect 100%. the fda has said that if it protects 50% of people against severe disease and dying from it, then it can be approved. so it's not necessarily going to stop the spread of the virus. >> if you want to control the virus spread by blocking transmission, then you need to probably have very high rates of vaccination. t

speaking at the bloomberg new economy forum, the cofounder of the bill and melinda gates foundation didighlight some progress being made on covid-19 vaccines. the only thing they have done well is they funded more r&d, not just for u.s.-based companies but for companies around the world, including a lot of these european constructs. that was a good thing. that was a favor to the world. the rest of it, the u.s. is at the back of the pack. the diagnostic work we did, the messaging, even today the messaging is reaching a new level of incoherence. gates added it is too soon to say whether covid-19 will be fully eliminated. talks over a post-brexit agreement were disrupted when one eu official involved in the negotiations tested positive for coronavirus. the eu chief brexit negotiator tweeted he would suspected talks with the u.k. for a short period. the two sides are trying to reach an agreement by early next week to allow time for a deal to be ratified before the end of the year. the u.s. secretary of state mike pompeo visited an israeli settlement in the occupied west bank today, the firs

for perspective about the road ahead we're joined by bill gates, co-chairman of the bill and melinda gatesoundation. bill, our first conversation was back on march 26. there were less than 2,000 americans dead at that point. just over 80,000 reported cases. we've just now crossed 250,000 dead in this country and more than 11.5 million cases. did you ever imagine it would get this bad this fast? >> well, sadly, you know, this is an exponential phenomena and we worried even at that time that it was going to be seasonal and therefore the fall would be tough. it's tragic. but, yes, you know, in fact it could have been even worse if the pathogen had been even more fatal. >> i was once years ago in niger in a malnutrition crisis and i talked to a doctor who works with doctors without borders in this remote place in niger, he was describing children who die because they don't have access to an antibiotic that costs 25 cents or something. and he called them stupid deaths. that they're deaths that didn't need to occur because the vaccines, you know, the vaccine exists. it's just a question of getti

pre-covid, the bio hub and the bill and melinda gates foundation, we were working on an worldwide, earlyarning for infectious diseases. kind of ironic. it was to leverage biology and infrastructure in low income countries by giving them technology training. the price of analyzing data has actually gone up while the cost to process samples has gone down. there are solutions to that. what good is the data if you cannot analyze it? was ivc.ion this was pre-covid. people in your own country to analyze samples from people, insects, life stocks, environment. whatever you want? . making an emergency pathogen dashboard for the world was the idea. in early january, i was in cambodia, with the team, helping to set up the system there. it was with the institute there that they used the system to detect a chinese tourist with covid. we were able to sequence that genome in mid-january, early on in the pandemic. we thought great, the system is working. this thing probably will not go .ar past asia we were badly wrong and that, obviously. now the march, where are we and what are we turning our attentio

european governments and the bill and melinda gates foundation of pledged to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency funds for a global effort aimed at ensuring eventual virus vaccines are quickly available to poor countries. the united states china and russia are not taking part in that effort. governor gavin newsom is asking a judge to hold off on a decision that would limit his executive power to republicans say lawmakers sued the governor claiming that he overstepped the boundaries of his power during the pandemic state of emergency the judge limon merrily. >>decided to limit the governor's executive power in the coronavirus related state of emergency on behalf of the governor though california's attorney general. >>filed a motion requesting that the judge hold off on finalizing that decision for at least 2 weeks. the judge's decision is set to be finalized friday tomorrow, the 2 lawmakers meantime who filed the case say they will continue all the way to the state supreme court if necessary. >>not too long ago washed up here. this is and we're backing up we're back it up.

the group called the campus vote project received millions of dollars from the bill and melinda gatesigh schoolers and college students to work in battleground states. that's working out splendidly so far, don't you sympathy. >>> president trump signing a new executive order today prohibiting u.s. investments in chinese firms that the trump administration say are owned or controlled by the chinese military. also tiktok is going ahead, the administration, i guess, giving up on the idea of blocking tiktok for national security or reasons but zeroing in on these other chinese companies. we'll see how that works out. also breaking, president trump is zeroing in on dominion voting machines. dominion voting systems used in 28 states across the country including battleground statements arizona, georgia, michigan, nevada, pennsylvania and wisconsin. a january 2019 report from the texas secretary of state found a number of issues with dominion's democracy suite 5.5a machine, the same model used, for example, in pennsylvania. one of the troubling findings by the secretary of state in texas was

the world health organization and the bill and melinda gates foundation are working on this in a major way, providing huge amounts of money to eradicate this forever. their goal is 2018 there will be no polio in the world. the only bad thing is that you may remember a few weeks ago, there were nine polio workers, women who were working in pakistan who were gunned down and killed. just a horrible, horrible, horrible situation. but the other thing i wanted to mention is that good things can happen from a history book beside all you learn, but i did read that bill gates read this book when it first came out, and he loved it, and he was so inspired that he decided that his foundation would, indeed, take on polio as a major, major focus for his vast amounts of money. and so that sort of prompted him to try to move toward eradicating polio worldwide. so we're almost there today. and people ask me about the march of dimz todes today. i still get mail from the march of dimes. what it works on now, obviously not polio, but birth defects, particularly in premature babies. so they're still doing

i think i talk about this with bill and melinda gates. ... ... to make a difference in the world. and financial resources are necessary for activists. for people on the front line, and they know super well. people don't realize most of africa and health workers are generally volunteers. there is a new kind of effort to say coming actually moved to a workforce to ensure were going to provide universal healthcare. people have to get paid. those kind of things are going to be increasingly important. >> a lot of volunteers are women. so yes. i could not agree more. i think going to go to more questions from the question box. one i think is you can interpret however you wish. it's from roger. roger asked what lessons can we learn from 2020? back i would say there are two that come to mind top of mind. it's a super tough question. there are so many things that happen this year it's hard to imagine in some context. one is leadership. throughout the world i am lucky to see this crisis in this year through multiple angles. even though i'm sitting in the united states and here because we ca

we have many non-governmental organizations, like the bill and melinda gates foundation, like gaby and kovacs. and i think that's all going to have an influence on how this is priced because the whole world is really suffering because of this pandemic. and i do think that the, that the bulk of the incentive is to make this as affordable a vaccine as possible. and there's going to be a lot of funds available to purchase this vaccine. and i think that we likely will see the world on a, on a slower scale than what's happening in the developing countries get vaccinated within hopefully we will eradicate this virus as of all account threat. ok, well that's very positive that i just want to be clear about what it is that you're saying there. so when i, when you talk about the price that you're talking about, the price that countries a paid, the pharmaceutical companies, all the price which it is passed on to consumers. because pharmaceutical companies, of course, not, no, for their charitable instance. i think it's what we're going to see is probably very little out of pocket cost to the per

the world health organization and the bill and melinda gates organization are working on this and a major way. providing huge amounts of money to eradicate this forever. their goal is to thousand 18 there will be no polio in the world. the only bad thing is that if you remember a few weeks ago, there were polio workers, women who were working in pakistan who were gunned down and killed. just a horrible, horrible, horrible situation. but the other thing that i want to say is that -- can happen from a history book, beside all you learn, but i did read that bill gates read this book in the first chronology and he loved and he was so inspired, and his organization would indeed take on polio as a major, major focus, vast amounts of money. so that prompted him to try to move towards eradicating polio worldwide. so we're almost there today. so people ask me about the march of dimes today. i still get mail from the march of dimes. but it's on, now obviously not polio, but particularly premature babies. so they're still doing things and raising money. it's a different from polio. so that's it for

. >> that was some of nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel's conversation with melinda gatest's all part of on assignment with richard engel, race for the vaccine which airs sunday night at 10:00 p.m. eastern here on msnbc. what else can you tell us about the race for a vaccine? >> reporter: well, it has been the greatest journey of scientific discovery of our lifetimes. in many ways, it has been like the space race, the race to put a satellite into space or a man on the moon, except this one has been a race to end the pandemic, and it has taken a year, but finally we are starting to see the goal posts coming closer. there are many companies right now, many research laboratories that are at the end of the race. they are in phase three trials. they're getting ready to roll out vaccines at the end of this year or early next year, and it's not just one company. there are several in different countries around the world. now, the next stage is going to be if potentially even more difficult and that is distribution, getting the vaccine to the right people all over the world, and th

the foundation bill gates founded with his wife melinda has helped fund research into a number of diseasescluding covid. we're thankful he could take time from his schedule to join us this evening. how do you think the vaccine is going to -- i mean how is it actually going to, you know, get in people's arms or shoulders? is it in doctors' offices? is it, you know, in a stadium somewhere? is it in a convention center or a hospital setting? what will that actually look like? >> yeah, that isn't as clear as you'd like it to be. given the numbers involved, it's possible that we'll use the same sort of drive-through approach that we used for testing. you know, it doesn't take that long to give the shot. you get the one shot, and then you come back later for the second shot. and you'd like to have it all recorded so, you know, in terms of making sure that, you know, are there any breakthrough cases, that is, people who got vaccinated who got sick. we want to study all those breakthrough cases. we want to study to make sure there are no side effects. you don't want big lines because, of course, i

now one of the richest people in the world he's giving away a book of his money to the bill and melinda gates foundation. but when you sit down with warren buffett he doesn't brag about how rich he is or smart he is, he doesn't do the self-deprecating humor it's great when you can meet people that they are humble and that's what i like them to show self-deprecating humor not taking themselves too seriously. >> to have you not interviewed? >> queen elizabeth it doesn't do interviews, the pope doesn't but i never interviewed andrea mitchell so maybe i could interview andrea. >> that would be a pleasure but those questions that come out of the blue what is one of the most unguarded questions you have ever asked? >> i like to ask them what makes them a leader so for example one time i interviewed the ceo of an