‘The world hasn’t yet seen the worst of the Covid pandemic,’ said Bill Gates. The software entrepreneur and philanthropist did not want to come across as negative. But he warned that a ‘much more transmissive and lethal’ variant could develop. The chances of the transmission are merely 5%, it could mean the worst is yet to come.
Speaking to Financial Times, Gates said, “We’re still at risk of this pandemic generating a variant that would be even more transmissive and even more fatal. It’s not likely, I don’t want to be a voice of doom and gloom, but it’s way above a 5% risk that this pandemic, we haven’t even seen the worst of it.”
Bill Gates’ warnings related to the pandemic
Gates is also advocating the need to have a team of experts such as epidemiologists to computer modelers to identify the possibilities for upcoming variants and how to avoid them. Although, this isn’t the first time that Gates has spoken or warned about the risk of pandemics. Dating back to 2015, he had spoken about pandemics in a TED talk.
“If the pandemic hadn’t come along it would have been a fairly obscure TED Talk,” Gates told The Times.
Discussing further the topic, he spoke about how the modern way of living wasn’t beneficial for anyone.
“Everyone who works in infectious diseases just has this fear of human transmissible respiratory viruses. The more people travel and the stronger the interaction between wild species and humans, the more risk of zoonotic cross-species-type diseases,” Bill Gates said.
Amid the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Gates asked world leaders to keep the health problem in mind. He asked for more money to be put into preventing future pandemics. He also stated that longer-lasting vaccines for the prevention of infection are urgent in citing the present pandemic as a threat.