Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said President Trump’s travel bans early on in the coronavirus pandemic may have made the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. worse.
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Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 31 blocking entry to the U.S. for anyone who had been to China in the last 14 days as the country was the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak at the time. In March, Trump announced a ban on travel from Europe and countries experiencing significant outbreaks.
Gates, who warned of the need to prepare for pandemics in 2015, has on several occasions criticized the U.S. response to the coronavirus outbreak. In an interview this week with Stat News, Gates said the U.S. mismanaged the crisis every step of the way, saying it’s “shocking” and “unbelievable” that the nation is among the worst in the world in terms of its handling of the outbreak. He’s also consistently said the U.S. has failed to carry out adequate testing.
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‘The COVID-19 pandemic not only stopped progress, it kicked it backward,’ said Gates, who co-founded Microsoft Corp, in a conference call with reporters. He and his wife Melinda set up the philanthropic foundation in 2000.
U.N. members unanimously passed 17 Sustainable Development Goals, known as SDGs, in 2015, that read like a blueprint of ambitious tasks from ending hunger and gender inequality to expanding access to education and health care.
.@BillGates told Chris Wallace in an exclusive interview that President Trump’s travel ban made the coronavirus situation worse. The full interview airs this FOX News Sunday. Check your local listings. #FoxNewsSunday pic.twitter.com/3i7xaCQzja
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) September 18, 2020
The U.S. currently leads the world in the number of infections and deaths, with more than 6.7 million cases and more than 198,000 deaths.
Gates, a longtime philanthropist on issues of global healthcare and poverty, earlier this week issued a report saying the coronavirus pandemic has wiped out progress on lofty goals such as ending world poverty and hunger in the next decade.