Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has once again blasted the United States’ much-maligned coronavirus testing capacity and overall response to the ongoing pandemic.

“Other countries did very good testing early on. They activated the commercial sector,” he said Tuesday at the Wall Street Journal CEO Summit.  

“The U.S., to this day, has that you don’t get quick test results. It’s truly a sad thing that we haven’t organized testing.” 

The average turnaround time on coronavirus tests—still more often days and not hours—has improved in many states since the beginning of the viral outbreak, according to federal officials, but it’s still not at the level seen in many other developed countries.

Health officials have asserted that more widespread and rapid testing would encourage more people to safely isolate if they test positive, which could help limit the further spread and potential future outbreaks.

Gates, who has been warning about the threat of a global pandemic since 2015, said that financially investing in more and rapid coronavirus testing can keep infections to more manageable levels, thus eschewing the need for further shutdowns of businesses and schools.   

The Microsoft co-founder noted the success that China had with lockdowns in containing the virus but admitted that such measures would be more difficult to implement in the United States, which continues to report more than forty thousand new coronavirus cases per day, according to Johns Hopkins University. 

“The U.S. never did a lockdown. And China proved that if you do an effective lockdown, you can drive disease to zero,” he said. “It was extreme. It’d be hard to execute in most countries, but they got to zero.”

Gates pointed to South Korea and Australia as prime examples of countries that successfully mounted a strong response to the coronavirus pandemic and brought their respective outbreaks under control.  

He contended that it wasn’t a coincidence that these two countries had experience responding to the SARS outbreak in 2002.

“Because this is an exponential event, a little bit of intelligence early on, makes a huge difference,” Gates said.  

“I do think this time we’ll learn and we’ll have innovations so the next time this happens, we’ll do better, but we’re still dealing with the mistakes of February and March.”

Gates had previously said that it is “mind-blowing” that the U.S. government, months into the pandemic, still hasn’t been able to improve upon its testing.

He said that he has been in touch with the federal government and recommended that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention establish a public website to prioritize who gets tested and how quickly.

Gates is also funding vaccine-development efforts by AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax, and has stated that he expects the United States to make positive strides next year as a viable coronavirus vaccine becomes a reality.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.  

Image: Reuters