Bill Gates's 2020 Warning That Normal Life Could Wait Until 2022

Originally published 2020-12-14.

In a CNN interview broadcast on 13 December 2020, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates warned Americans not to expect life to return fully to normal until some point in 2022, even with vaccines about to arrive. He also said that, sadly, it was appropriate for bars and restaurants to stay closed for the next four to six months while infections were surging. The comments landed the day before the first Americans were vaccinated, and they set off a fierce reaction online.

This page sets out what Gates actually said, what the situation looked like at the time, how his forecast compares with what happened, and why his name attracts so many conspiracy theories.

Photo: Reuters / Matthew Knight

What Gates said

Gates made three main points. First, the months immediately ahead would be grim, and keeping crowded indoor venues such as bars and restaurants shut for roughly four to six months was, in his view, justified to slow transmission. Second, things should improve noticeably by the summer of 2021 as vaccination spread. Third, people should be ready for some disruption to continue "even through 2022", because vaccinating a whole country, and the world, would take time.

He was not announcing a policy. Gates holds no public office, and closures were decided by state and local governments. He was giving an opinion as someone whose foundation had spent years funding vaccine and pandemic work.

.@BillGates on Covid: "Even through 2022” we should be prepared for life to not return to “normal”

Says “sadly" it’s "appropriate” for bars and restaurants to close over the next "four to six months" pic.twitter.com/cmDD8pv3XR

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 13, 2020

He also criticised the handling of the transition between administrations. With Donald Trump still refusing to concede the November election, Gates said the transition was complicating matters, and he contrasted that with the incoming team, which he said was "willing to rely on actual experts and not attack those experts". He did not spell out exactly which parts of the vaccine rollout he thought were affected.

The situation in December 2020

It is easier to understand the remarks with the numbers of that week in mind. On 14 December 2020 the United States passed 300,000 recorded Covid-19 deaths, the highest total of any country. Testing gaps meant the true number of infections was certainly much larger than the confirmed count. Hospitals in many states were under severe strain heading into the holidays.

At the same time, there was real hope. The US Food and Drug Administration authorised the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine for emergency use on 11 December, and on 14 December nurse Sandra Lindsay in Queens, New York, became the first American to receive an authorised shot outside a trial. The Moderna vaccine followed a week later.

The economic damage was severe. Unemployment had jumped to 14.7 percent in April 2020, the highest of the year, and more than 50 million jobless claims had been filed between March and July. For restaurant owners and bar staff, Gates's suggestion of four to six more months of closures sounded like a threat to their livelihoods.

The backlash on social media

Reaction was quick and often angry. Some commentators accused Gates of wanting to destroy the economy or called him a tyrant; others argued that a billionaire was in no position to tell low-paid workers to stay at home. A few examples from that day:

Bill Gates wants to destroy America. https://t.co/FYOG7mOiqA

— SUPER-SPREADER Nick Searcy, INT’L FILM & TV STAR (@yesnicksearcy) December 13, 2020

Bill Gates is not a doctor, not even a Jill Biden doctor.

— Cerno (@Cernovich) December 13, 2020

Bill Gates says lockdowns should continue well into 2022, with bars and restaurants shut down for the next six months. Reject this tyrant. pic.twitter.com/2AWaeEuRAd

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 13, 2020

Unless Bill Gates is willing to give his entire fortune away to people who work in the bar and restaurant industry, his opinion is worthless https://t.co/y7M6pS6VS5

— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) December 13, 2020

(This post is no longer available on X.)

There was a fair point buried in some of this criticism. Long closures hit hospitality workers, small business owners and their families much harder than people who could work from home, let alone the very wealthy. Whether or not one agreed with Gates on the public health question, many readers felt his comments did not reflect what those closures cost ordinary people. Support for affected workers and businesses was a separate policy question that governments, not Gates, had to answer.

How the forecast held up

Looking back, the broad shape of the prediction was close to what happened, even if the details varied a lot by place.

• Spring and summer 2021 were better. More than 100 million vaccine doses had been given in the US by mid-March 2021, every state had opened eligibility to everyone aged 16 and over by 19 April, and about two thirds of adults had at least one dose by early July. Many restrictions eased.
• Normal did not fully return in 2021. The Delta variant drove a new wave that summer and autumn, and the Omicron variant caused record case numbers around the turn of 2022.
• Bars and restaurants reopened earlier in many states. Rules were set locally, and many areas allowed indoor dining well before the four-to-six-month window Gates described had passed.

So his timeline for a full return to normal was roughly right, while his view on closures was one side of a debate that each state settled differently.

Why Gates attracts conspiracy theories

Gates had been warning about pandemic risk for years. In a widely viewed TED talk in March 2015 he said the world was not ready for the next major outbreak. Through his foundation he funds vaccine research and delivery around the world, and in 2020 the foundation helped set up a fund to speed up Covid-19 treatments. In March 2020 he left the Microsoft board to focus on philanthropy.

That high profile made him a target. False claims spread widely online that he planned to depopulate the world, that vaccines were harmful by design, or that he wanted to implant microchips to track people. None of these claims has any supporting evidence. Gates himself suggested that some people find it easier to blame an evil individual than a virus, and said he had no idea why anyone thought he wanted to track them.

It is possible to criticise Gates, his wealth or his influence on global health policy without believing any of these theories. Keeping those two things apart is a good habit for reading any story about him.

What to take from it today

Gates's December 2020 comments were an opinion about a specific moment, not a lasting rule. They are a useful reminder of how uncertain that winter felt: vaccines had just arrived, deaths were climbing, and nobody knew how quickly new variants would appear. For health questions about Covid-19 or vaccines, the best guide is your own doctor and your local public health authority.

Sources: Interview clip posted by Tom Elliott on X, 13 December 2020 (embedded above); Wikipedia: COVID-19 pandemic in the United States; Wikipedia: COVID-19 vaccination in the United States; Wikipedia: Bill Gates; US Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2020 employment report. Photo: Reuters / Matthew Knight.