Bill gates He warned that an upcoming pandemic could be 10 times worse and that humanity is not prepared for it. He also insisted that people must learn the lesson that COVID-19 is giving us, according to a quote from the RT portal to an interview with the tycoon for a German media .
According to the billionaire, “we are not prepared for the next pandemic,” in the same way he hopes that this situation will change in a couple of years and indicated the axes of opportunity such as drugs, tests, vaccines, epidemiology, and follow-up.
This pandemic is bad, but a future pandemic could be 10 times more serious,” said the magnate, who urged governments to protect their citizens against possible new diseases.
On the other hand, the philanthropist said that if this pandemic had developed five years ago, the world would not have had a vaccine in such a short time, while congratulating scientists for achieving such rapid progress in the development of the injection .
He also called on the rulers to avoid vaccination nationalism and to distribute the vaccine fairly.
This is not the first time that Gates has warned of future illnesses, in an interview with the Financial Times via Skype on April 2, 2020 , the businessman said that this coronavirus pandemic was the “largest event that many people will experience in his entire life, “and he prevented that a similar viral outbreak will likely occur” every 20 years or so . ”
Similarly, in a post on his foundation’s blog , written in conjunction with his wife Melinda Gates, the billionaire stated that “the unfortunate reality is that COVID-19 may not be the last pandemic. We do not know when the next one will arrive, or if it will be a flu, a coronavirus or some new disease that we have never seen before. But what we do know is that we cannot allow ourselves to be caught off guard again. The threat of the next pandemic will always be over our heads, unless the world takes steps to prevent it. “
What should we do to prevent the next pandemic according to Bill Gates?
“The world needs to double investments in R&D (research and development),” as well as develop entirely new capabilities that do not yet exist.
Gates explains that “stopping the next pandemic will require spending tens of billions of dollars a year” and comments that the estimate of global expenditures for the COVID-19 pandemic is approximately 28 trillion dollars.
The co-founder of Microsoft encouraged governments to continue investing in the scientific tools that are helping us in the current crisis “even after COVID-19 is behind us.”
Finally, Gates hopes that in the next few years “mega-diagnostic platforms” can be developed, which can assess up to 20% of the population each week.
