Bill Gates said the risks of severe Covid-19 illness have already “dramatically declined” but another pandemic is looming.
“We will have a new pandemic. Next time it will be a different pathogen, ”CNBC quotes Gates.
The billionaire spoke at the annual security conference in Munich, where he said advances in medical technology should help the world better deal with the next pathogen. According to Gates, this alone is not enough.
“If every country did what Australia did, we wouldn’t be talking about a pandemic,” Gates added.
Australia has introduced some of the toughest measures against the pandemic in the world. Sydney and Melbourne have experienced some of the longest lockdowns ever, and the movement of unvaccinated people has been severely restricted since then.
Subsequently, the country introduced rules prohibiting people without a Covid-19 vaccine from practicing various professions. This led to the elimination of world tennis leader Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open.
Beyond the measures, Gates said investments of at least $3.5 billion are needed to develop vaccines for the next pandemic faster and reach more people.
“Next time we should try to do it not in two years, but in six months,” Gates said, given the pace of vaccination.
According to him, mRNA technology should be standardized and become the basis for fighting future pandemics. Gates said it was “too late” to reach the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population by mid-2022.
According to the billionaire, the weight of Covid-19 is decreasing, but this was mainly due to mass illness, because vaccines did not reach everyone quickly.
“We should be back to normal by the end of 2022,” the Microsoft co-founder said a year ago.
Bill Gates, who stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in 2014, has invested at least $1.75 billion in the global fight against Covid-19 through his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The billionaire has invested more than $250 million in the development of new vaccines and $156 million in the Covax scheme, which was created to ensure that low-income countries also have access to coronavirus drugs.
Bill Gates is also known for his strong support for the fight against the climate change crisis. The billionaire even told the BBC that it would be “the most amazing thing mankind has ever done” if she succeeds.
According to him, it is necessary to take all necessary measures to reduce global temperatures. If they don’t work, then humanity must have a “Plan B”.
Bill Gates sees a fallback in the development of solar eclipse technology. He is funding a project to disperse small particles in the upper atmosphere. This could potentially reflect sunlight, causing a global cooling effect, according to Forbes.