Bill Gates Blasts Trump's Idea Of Ending Lockdown For Saving Economy As 'Irresponsible'

The entire world is under lockdown to follow social distancing and prevent the spreading of the novel coronavirus.

Reuters

However, Donald Trump yesterday shared the idea to end the lockdown in the US by Easter, with ¡®packed churches¡¯ calling it a beautiful thing -- even after warnings from health officials in the US and COVID-19 still nowhere under control.

Trump has been talking about the lockdown severely affecting the nation¡¯s economy and how that should also be taken into consideration.

He even suggested sending healthy people to work with people who are more vulnerable to the disease stay under lockdown. However, Microsoft founder and philanthropist is clearly not happy with this stance.

In a recent TED Connects program broadcast, Bill Gates reacted to Trump¡¯s outlook on COVID-19, although not directly taking Trump¡¯s name.

Gates said in a statement,¡°There really is no middle ground, and it¡¯s very tough to say to people, ¡®Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner. We want you to keep spending because there¡¯s maybe a politician who thinks GDP growth is all that counts.¡¯ It¡¯s very irresponsible for somebody to suggest that we can have the best of both worlds.¡±

While Gates did acknowledge the toll the lockdown is taking on the economy, he also made it clear how deadly COVID-19 really is and there is no other way to deal with it.

Bill Gates (Representative Image: Reuters)

He said, ¡°There really is no middle ground.¡± He also mentioned that a shutdown of six to ten weeks is crucial to lower the intensity of the novel coronavirus in the US and not put too much pressure on the healthcare system.

He further said, ¡°The economic effect of this is really dramatic. Nothing like this has ever happened to the economy in our lifetime. But bringing the economy back, that¡¯s more of a reversible thing than bringing people back to life. So we¡¯re going to take the pain in the economic dimension ¡ª huge pain ¡ª in order to minimize the pain in the diseases-and-death dimension.¡±

Gates, with his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is leaving no stones unturned to fight against the novel coronavirus. He has already pledged $100 million to help in efforts containing the novel coronavirus.

He also funded 15,000 medicinal molecules to be shipped to a leading laboratory in Belgium to test and be a potential cure to the novel coronavirus. Recently, he donated Rs 37 crores for at-home testing kits for COVID-19 for people in Washington.