Can Bill Gates Vaccinate the World?

03/03/21 • 31 min

4 Listeners

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the Microsoft founder Bill Gates was the most powerful and provocative private individual operating within global public health.

Today, we look at the role he has played in public health and his latest mission: procuring Covid-19 vaccines for countries in the developing world.

Guest: Megan Twohey, an investigative reporter for The New York Times; and Nicholas Kulish, an enterprise correspondent covering philanthropy, wealth and nonprofits for The Times.

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Background reading:

Bill Gates is working with the World Health Organization, drugmakers and nonprofits to tackle the coronavirus, including in the world’s poorest nations. Can they do it?
An operation to supply billions of vaccine doses to poorer countries got underway last week. But as rich countries buy most of the available supply, stark inequalities remain.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

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When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the Microsoft founder Bill Gates was the most powerful and provocative private individual operating within global public health.

Today, we look at the role he has played in public health and his latest mission: procuring Covid-19 vaccines for countries in the developing world.

Guest: Megan Twohey, an investigative reporter for The New York Times; and Nicholas Kulish, an enterprise correspondent covering philanthropy, wealth and nonprofits for The Times.

Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter.

Background reading:

Bill Gates is working with the World Health Organization, drugmakers and nonprofits to tackle the coronavirus, including in the world’s poorest nations. Can they do it?
An operation to supply billions of vaccine doses to poorer countries got underway last week. But as rich countries buy most of the available supply, stark inequalities remain.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Previous Episode

The $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Plan

The Senate is preparing to vote on another stimulus bill — the third of the pandemic.

The bill has the hallmarks of a classic stimulus package: money to help individual Americans, and aid to local and state governments. It also contains provisions that would usher in long-term structural changes that have been pushed for many years by Democrats.

Today, we explore the contours of the Biden administration’s stimulus bill and look at the competing arguments.

Guest: Jim Tankersley, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.

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Background reading:

The stimulus bill is polling strongly across the country, including with many Republican voters, despite a scattershot series of attacks from congressional Republicans.
Before the vote on President Biden’s stimulus package, here’s a fact check on some of the common talking points.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Next Episode

How Close Is the Pandemic’s End?

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It’s been almost a year since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

And the virus is persisting: A downward trend in the U.S. caseload has stalled, and concern about the impact of variants is growing. Yet inoculations are on the rise, and the F.D.A. has approved Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine, the third to be approved in the U.S.

Today, we check in on the latest about the coronavirus.

Guest: Carl Zimmer, a science writer and author of the “Matter” column for The New York Times.

Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter.

Background reading:

After the Johnson & Johnson vaccine approval, President Biden vowed that there would be enough vaccine doses for “every adult in America” by the end of May.
For more information about the emerging mutations, check out The Times’s variant tracker.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.