Opinion: Bill Gates' prophecy fell on deaf ears, and we are paying a big price.
Bill Gates, former boss of Microsoft, has long been my favourite tech billionaire. Thoughtful, apparently decent, intellectually curious and off-the-scale smart, he's driven not so much by the profit motive as a genuine sense of the social purpose of business and innovation, with their power to improve lives and generate prosperity.
It scarcely needs saying that, despite the wake-up call of Ebola, his words fell on deaf ears, at least in the United States, Britain and large parts of the rest of Europe. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but cannot, in truth, be offered by way of excuse in this case. There were multiple warnings from the likes of Gates, yet coronavirus still found us woefully unprepared.
There is also growing confusion, compounded by the mixed messaging of government ministers and officials, about who should be working and who shouldn't. Is all work deemed "non-essential" to cease, even among companies capable of enforcing recommended social distancing in the workplace? That indeed would seem to be the implication of the government's instruction.
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