Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said Wednesday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that he does not understand why people object to wearing face masks.
Cooper said, “Yesterday, President Biden made a plea to some Republican governors. He said, ‘I say to these governors, please help, but if you aren’t going to help, at least get out of the way for people to do the right thing. Use your power to save lives.’ When you look at the state of Florida that is experiencing such a surge right now, the governor there signed an executive order that threatened to pull funding from schools that implement mask mandates. Does that make sense to you, especially for children under 12 years old?”
Gates said, “I’ve never understood being against masks as strongly as some people are. If you look at all the measures where there’s a certain cost to every one of these measures, and there’s a certain benefit in terms of saving lives and preventing diseases, I think wearing masks is one of the lowest cost and highest benefit things in this whole picture. ”
He added, “You know, no one wants schools to be closed in the fall. I think if we get vaccine levels up and wear masks in a lot of indoor situations where you have a meaningful amount of COVID, I think we will be able to run schools and have most businesses open. I think the value to that is incredible. So we’re caught, you know, where in some cases it’s the states that have the loosest mandates will pay the highest price.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN