‘What Australia did:’ Bill Gates praises Aussie Covid response

The international rich lister applauded Australia’s Covid response and advocated for other countries to follow our approach in any future pandemic.

US billionaire and Microsoft founder Bill Gates has applauded Australia’s pandemic strategy.

Speaking at the inaugural Munich Security Council, Mr Gates said Australia’s ability to quickly implement restrictions allowed the island nation to suppress Covid cases early on.

“If every country does what Australia did, then you wouldn’t be calling [the next outbreak] a pandemic,” he said.

Mr Gates also said the fast execution of stricter policies would be pivotal in curbing future outbreaks of the infectious disease.

Mr Gates spoke about how governments can better prepare themselves against future pandemics. Picture: Evan Vucci / AFP

Australia, which has a population of 25.96 million, has reported 5157 deaths among 3.19 million cases to date. In comparison, the United States, which has a population of 329.5 million — 13 times the size of Australia — has reported 947,000 deaths among 78.8 million cases.

As of February 21, Australia has also reopened international borders, with WA continuing to be the exception. Caps on international arrivals entering WA won’t be removed until March 3 when 70 per cent of the state’s 16+ population is expected to have received three doses of the vaccine.

Early successes in the pandemic to reduce transmissions meant the Australian government was able to suppress the spread of cases. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Robinson

In a recent blog post on Mr Gates’ website, GatesNotes, the philanthropist wrote that the world is “not out of the woods yet” when it comes to Covid. While he was weary about the virus’ ability to mutate, he conceded the vaccine and the “rapid spread of Omicron” appeared to offer more people protection against severe disease.

Mr Gates also said innovations in public health, vaccine development and disease tracking would hopefully prevent to next bout of infectious disease.

“It took less than a year after the virus emerged to develop a vaccine against it,” he wrote. “I believe we’ll do even better next time and can deliver them to everyone within six months of an outbreak if we build enough global capacity.”

While the couple have since separated, Bill and Melinda Gates vowed to eradicate polio through the work of their namesake foundation. Picture: Frederic Stevens/Getty Images

A vocal supporter of vaccines – Mr Gates has vowed to eradicate polio through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – the philanthropist has become the target of conspiracy theories from QAnon and anti-vaxxer, far-right fringe groups.

Some of them alleged the billionaire orchestrated the pandemic, with one theory claiming Mr Gates intended to implant microchips into people through the Covid-19 vaccine.

Responding to the bizarre theories, Mr Gates told Reuters in January 2021 the claims were “evil”.

“Nobody would have predicted that I and Fauci would be so prominent in these really evil theories,” he said.

“I’m very surprised by that [and] I hope it goes away,” he added.