WASHINGTON - Vaccine distribution could be "tricky and kind of weird" in the United States because the country's Centers for Disease Control hasn't had a visible role during the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has told media.

"The federal government has abdicated on many things during the pandemic," Gates, also co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told NBC's "Today" in an interview last week.

Overall, the US government could have handled the pandemic better, he said, adding that "as we do the post mortem, there'll be a lot of things, like confused messaging (and) lack of leadership, that will fall on the executive branch".

Earlier at a virtual UN event on tackling COVID-19, Gates has called for scaling up efforts to achieve the goal of global elimination of COVID-19 as the world pins hopes on the development of vaccines to end the pandemic.

The United States has set new world records for COVID-19 core metrics, including hospitalizations, seven-day average case and death increases, as the total number of confirmed cases topped 15 million on Tuesday.