Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, 65, received his second dose of the Covid vaccine a week ago, he said during an interview on the social application Clubhouse on Wednesday. But even though the co-founder of Microsoft is completely vaccinated, he continues to take safety measures, such as wearing a mask.
“I want to set a good example,” Gates told Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Clubhouse. “If you’re vaccinated, you can still transmit.”
The Centers for Disease Control says that even people who are fully vaccinated for Covid must continue to follow public health safety measures. While the vaccines used by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have been shown to be very effective in preventing severe illness and death from Covid, it is unclear at this stage whether they prevent transmission.
“I will not stop wearing masks or being careful, especially around the elderly who have not been vaccinated,” Gates told Sorkin, who is also a co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Many people wondered when we would be able to return to normal or at least reduce prevention measures, such as social distancing and masking.
“Only by the end of spring or summer will we reach numbers where you can look at changing your behavior in a meaningful way,” Gates said.
Gates said he plans to wear masks throughout the fall until infection rates drop significantly, adding that the practice “is not a huge disaster.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical officer of the White House, said Americans may have to continue wearing masks until 2022, during a CNN interview on Sunday for the State of the Union. The need for masks depends on the level of virus circulating in a community.
“If you see that the level is really going down, very, very low, I want it to go down to such a low baseline that … there is a minimal, minimal threat that you will be exposed to someone infected,” Fauci said.
While people who have been vaccinated should wear masks in public and around people outside their household who have not received the vaccine, it is safe for fully vaccinated people to come together without masks.
By May or June, all priority groups will be vaccinated so that young people without underlying conditions can be vaccinated, Fauci said during an interview with Pod America on Feb. 18.
There should be enough doses of vaccine to inoculate 300 million people by July. Then, according to Fauci, it could take the summer to get the vaccines in everyone’s arms.
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