The TED Interview Podcast on 31st March 2020
Bill Gates predicated and warned of a global pandemic for which he noted that sadly there was very little done.
His first prediction was back in 2015 when Gates said:
“If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war. Not missiles, but microbes.”
In 2017 Gates backed it up at the World Economic Forum by saying:
“It’s pretty surprising how little preparedness there is for it [a health pandemic]”
Gates is clearly very knowledgeable on the topic and in this podcast he outlines how his foundation discovered COVID-19 could transmit from people to people by undertaking flu tests and that South Korea is the best learning of how to control the virus. His remedy is as much testing as possible and a sharp (and relatively short) isolation, in his view these are the only true ways to solve the issue, which he believes could’ve been solved before it began.
The economies of developed nations must be sacrificed as they will rebound, and will be needed to provide assistance to developing nations where COVID-19 is likely to have much more significant mortality rates. Whilst vaccines are still a while away the signs are promising, Gates believes COVID-19 will be a distant memory in a 2-3 years, and a much needed lesson learnt in terms of global preparedness for when the next health pandemic occurs.