Bill Gates “prophecy”: The risk of severe Covid 19 has decreased significantly, but another pandemic is coming

On February 18, billionaire Bill Gates said that the risk of serious illness with Covid-19 has “reduced significantly” but another pandemic is approaching. At the same time, he emphasized, advances in medical technology can reduce the time to produce vaccines to 6 months.

Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference, suggested that a potential new pandemic could stem from a pathogen different from the corona virus family.

And advances in medical technology will help the world do a better job at combating new pandemics – if the investment in manufacturing research is done now.

“We’re going to have another pandemic. Next time it’s going to be a different pathogen,” Gates said.

Two years after the Covid-19 pandemic, Gates said the worst effects have subsided as large areas of the world have gained some degree of immunity. The severity of the latest omicron variant has also gradually decreased.

However, he also said that pandemics in many places are caused by viruses – which create a level of immunity, and have penetrated people “much better than vaccination”.

“The risk of severe disease is mainly in the elderly and with obesity or diabetes,” he said.

Gates said it was “too late” to meet the World Health Organization’s goal of immunizing 70% of the global population by mid-2022. Currently 61.9% of the world’s population has been vaccinated at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

He added that the world should “expeditiously develop and distribute more vaccines in the near future, and urge governments to invest now”.

“Next time, we should try and act now, instead of two years, we should do it in six months,” said Gates, adding that standardization platforms, including messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, should be used. , will make that possible.

“The cost of getting ready for the next pandemic isn’t huge. It’s not like climate change. If we’re rational, yes, next time we won’t be late.”

Gates, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has partnered with the UK’s Wellcome Trust to raise $300 million for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which helped build the programme. Covax to deliver vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.

CEPI is aiming to raise $3.5 billion in an effort to cut the time it takes to develop a new vaccine to just 100 days.

According to CNBC