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bill it's so nice to talk with you about
this goalkeeper's report
but i was really struck how different it
was from the last time we talked
about goalkeepers in 2018 and that was
so much of a more positive report you
know all of the
indicators were going in the right way
and covid really
has really just put the brakes on that i
think your report puts it really well
it said in the blink of an eye a health
crisis became an economic crisis
a food crisis a housing crisis a
political crisis
everything collided with everything else
so what about all of these results do
you think is the most
important one that we you know where
would you love to start to talk about
this
well as you say in most years the
reduction in malnutrition the reduction
in childhood death
uh the increase in literacy rates
there's this gradual progress that
human life is getting better people are
living longer
and it's amazing that this is so
widespread in its negative effects and
the actual direct effects of killing
people
in poorer countries is a very small part
of
the overall damage that's been done a
big part is that their
health systems that are very fragile
have been disrupted so vaccinations
aren't taking place
malaria bed nets are not getting out hiv
medicines are not getting out
and so africa will have dramatically
more deaths from these
indirect effects uh than from the direct
effects so the imperative
is let's bring the epidemic to an end
and that
um takes us to a discussion of about
vaccines which is the only tool to do
that
and then make sure that we do restore
the services even some ketchup
for the kids who miss those vaccinations
and
even if we do our best uh on all those
things the vaccine the restoration the
rich country generosity it'll take two
to three years
just to get back to the beginning of
2020
well and it has happened also quickly
one of the
uh things that the report talks about
that i found
really startling um was when it came to
vaccine distribution and how
key this is going to be uh in terms of
survivability
uh these uh this model from northeastern
university i was really shocked that
said that 33
of the deaths will be averted if
vaccines are distributed
to high income countries first but 61
percent
could be averted if the vaccines are
distributed to
all countries proportionally to their
population
can you talk about why that is
well they um there's deaths
uh all over and now no one's saying that
the
distribution algorithm will be totally
based on
uh equity uh you know there'll be some
tilt towards the countries that help
fund fund the r
d uh but we need to have some balance
here
uh both the generosity to buy the
vaccines for those countries
uh to increase the manufacturing
capacity because this is more
units of a vaccine than the world has
ever needed and then to help fund
uh that availability without uh
the rich countries taking all of that
capacity
do you think though that if if countries
say the united states or other wealthy
countries
don't you know take this equitable
approach that we will be
morally culpable for more deaths
well the foundation's motto is all lives
have equal value
and uh the foreign aid that rich
countries
give have saved tens of millions of
lives things like global fund for hiv
and gabi uh which helps buys vaccines
for things like diarrhea and pneumonia
uh and so there is some equity in the
world
but the very fact that you know our
foundation
is saving a life for every thousand
dollars we spend
it does show that we do treat lives
outside the us
as not being as valuable uh
as those lives and you know it's it's
it's pretty extreme
this would be a double mistake because
not only
would you be sacrificing those lives as
long as you let the disease
exist outside the united states or
anywhere in the world it's going to come
back
and so you can't resume your normal
activity and so
of all the health crises this is one
where the world really is in it together
uh even countries that did a good job on
the epidemic
uh like south korea or australia found
it difficult for there not to be
reinfections and so they're having to
continue preventative measures where
they have very few cases with big
uh disruption and economic costs and so
here
we've got to solve it uh for all of
humanity and
and so it's both just and even from a
selfish point of view
it's the smart thing to do well i mean
the report does make that point
repeatedly that you can't solve
a global problem with a national
solution
but it sounds to me like you're also
worried that
this might not really this this might
not really happen
that there won't be that global solution
because i mean that report
comes back to this point over and over
again
well so far the us although it is
exemplary in funding the r d
uh for the six vaccines that are the
most likely to
to get uh really strong regulatory
approval
by early next year the u.s has been
absent in the discussion about
creating the capacity and the aid money
to buy those vaccines now i'm hopeful
you know the congress historically has
been great on global health
uh you know very generous on things like
hiv
malaria uh and so the fact it's been
overlooked
and i hope that gets remedied and very
quickly because
uh every month that this epidemic stays
out there
literally costs trillions of dollars and
yet the
uh billions needed for the vaccine are
what
the only thing that will bring it to an
end you know one of the one of those
figures in there that really struck me
was the increase in poverty i mean here
there had been this
horrific streak of less and less poverty
i think it had gone on for about 20
years
and now all of a sudden you know tens of
millions of more people are pushed into
poverty
uh because of what's happened here and
the report talked a little bit about
you know women really uh taking the
brunt of some of that
could you talk about that yeah there's
no doubt in poor countries
uh things are tough for everyone but
women
bear the brunt of that and so if you get
this reversal into property
uh it's it's not equitable at
all uh the extra work having the kids at
home
uh you know finding enough food uh
you know extreme poverty is waking up
and and worrying when you have
enough to eat uh every day and
you know the goal by 2030 uh the
sustainable development goal
is to bring an end to extreme poverty uh
and the track record there
uh particularly in asia uh has been
quite good it's been going down a lot
the place where uh it's been toughest
is in africa where you have very high
population growth
you have the difficulty of climate
change making the farming
uh less predictable so you have years
where you don't
get enough and you know we'd hoped
that with generous aid with better seeds
uh that africa too would start
the kind of miracles that we've seen in
asia but this at best
is a a three or four year setback
uh to that uh quest to have
almost no one live in extreme poverty
you know there's so little
um good news in in this report and
understandably so but do you see
any innovations that might come out of
having to deal with with this disease or
do you see any
you know anything that what are the
hopeful lifelines
that uh that you could throw out there
well there's no doubt
that having ignored the warnings about
uh the pandemic this time
the rich countries including the us will
take the threat seriously and they'll do
the
kind of simulations to prepare
they'll have you know large-scale
diagnostic capability immediately
available which the us in particular
was the worst uh on that
will you know mature some of these
vaccine platforms that
are not only worthwhile for pandemics
but
will be used to make vaccines for
malaria tb
and hiv and so just like in wartime uh
you know we've moved quickly and tried
new things you know even
in terms of our lifestyle can you use
telemedicine can you
use online education can you avoid
some of the business travel we do you
know we our eyes have been opened up
and you know so the uh you know that
software is getting
a lot better uh and you know so it's a
real acceleration
there uh it doesn't offset
all the negative things that come out of
the pandemic but yes
uh the ingenuity in the pharmaceutical
companies
uh that's why we have six vaccine
candidates
several of which are extremely likely
uh to prove safe and efficacious by
early next year so if this pandemic
could come
10 years ago you know our internet
bandwidth
wouldn't have let us do our office jobs
the vaccine platforms won't be as far
along so
you know it's it's phenomenal we can say
that within a few years
with a little bit of luck on the
vaccines and some generosity
real effort to get the word out that
it's uh safe
uh this pandemic will come to a close
you know
so it a lot more negative would be
saying oh my god this
uh is gonna continue indefinitely that
uh fortunately because of science the
pharma companies
jumping in uh that's not the case
and so do you think it's as a last just
thought has the u.s
learned its lesson if you will about
taking pandemics seriously and being
prepared and
you know getting ready that's i mean the
problem is you get ready and then
nothing happens nothing happens nothing
happens and then you get unprepared
so but do you think that this will have
made that impression a lasting one
well we'll go and do a post-mortem uh
the cdc
um made some mistakes at the start and
then you had things moved up to a
political level without expertise
where the willingness to admit mistakes
was zero you know so the fact that we
still have
test results that take more than 24
hours that
is just a desire to say oh i solved the
testing thing you shouldn't reimburse
for those
uh delayed test results so we we still
you know are uh
performing way below what we should you
know so i do think there'll be a lesson
to let the professionals
uh do their work there'll be lots of
research and development
about how you can ramp up testing
drugs and vaccines very quickly so yes i
think
uh unlike you know the title of my 2015
talk which was we're not ready
for the next pandemic i think three
years from now
uh we will be ready for the next
pandemic
well i hope there isn't the next one but
uh i
i appreciate the optimism uh around that
well phil thank you so much for uh
talking with us at national geographic
about your latest goalkeepers report
thank you
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you