Episode 1: Introducing The Working Dinner

In the first episode of The Working Dinner series, three experts working in respiratory diseases, immunology, vaccine discovery, and vaccine development join Bill for a meal and a conversation two years after their last in-person meeting about lessons learned from COVID-19 that might help us prevent the next pandemic. See below for a short excerpt of their conversation, which has been slightly revised for clarity.

The key issue for me [in February 2020] was what would the role of the foundation be?

– Keith Klugman
Director, Pneumonia
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Bill Gates: I remember Keith in particular saying [in February 2020], “Hey, it’s going to spread.” And nobody said, “Oh Keith, you’re just panicking.” Everybody agreed.

Keith Klugman: Well, it was quite extraordinary, because WHO hadn’t declared the pandemic yet. They did it a month later. So we’d been living with a month of spread in China.

Anita Zaidi: This is a really tricky thing in calling it a pandemic or epidemic, right? You don’t know beforehand how bad it’s going to be. And so if you end up crying wolf, then everybody says, “Why did you create this panic?” And if you don’t, then this is the result we’re seeing.