Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who predicted the COVID-19 crisis in 2015, has warned over the emergence of another pandemic in the future.
Gates announced his plans at Germany’s annual Munich Security Conference. He noted that a potential new pandemic would likely stem from a different pathogen to that of the coronavirus family. Notably, Bill Gates previously said that the worst effects had faded as huge swathes of the global population had gained some level of immunity. According to the World Health Statistics, the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic has waned considerably. Gates believes that the world should move faster in the future to develop and distribute vaccines, calling on governments to invest now.
"Next time we should try and make it, instead of two years, we should make it more like six months. The cost of being ready for the next pandemic is not that large. It's not like climate change. If we’re rational, the next time we’ll catch it early," Bill Gates said, adding that standardized platforms, including messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, would make that possible.
