Founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, spoke about Covid-19 at a conference recently and explained that the major risks had been greatly reduced. Unfortunately, however, he also warned about a new pandemic that would soon follow.
Gates spoke with CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at Germany’s annual Munich Security Conference, and during the conversation, he said that the majority of the population had now been exposed to Covid-19 and because of that the “risks are dramatically reduced.”
As the Omicron variant made its way through South Africa, before spreading throughout the U.S., many people became infected with Covid. The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is known to be less severe, but still highly transmissible, and Gates believed it played a key role in the reduction of risk.
He said that the immunity gained through infection has “done a better job of getting out to the world population than we have with vaccines.”
Before finishing his conversation with Hadley, he said, “We’ll have another pandemic. It will be a different pathogen next time.” However, he does believe that it would be a strain of Cov-Sars.
In the future, when another pandemic does arise, Gates proposed an idea for how to handle it. “Next time we should try and make it, instead of two years, we should make it more like six months,” and explained the mRNA would make this possible.
He went on to say that the costs for controlling a pandemic (if we act beforehand to prepare) wouldn’t be that high. “It’s not like climate change.”
Recently, Gates donated $300 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which has worked to deliver vaccines to low and middle-income countries. The organization’s goal is to raise $3.5 billion. According to him, there are three things needed to handle the next pandemic.
1. Improve health systems.
2. Build a global pathogen surveillance system.
3. Continue to innovate in detection, treatment, and prevention.
Part of the $3.5 being raised is alleged to be going towards at least part of this list.