Call it a premonition or a coincidence or a gut feeling of the Microsoft CEO and Philanthropist Bill Gates, but he warned the world in 2015 of the Global Pandemic the world is not ready to face. It happened when he appeared in one of the TEDx Talks and said that the world might have prepared deterrents for missiles and nuclear wars, but the world is not ready for the fight against pathogens.
With more than 2,36,000 cases and 10,000 plus deaths around the world, Coronavirus has become a deadly pandemic, even worse than Ebola, which was confined to West African countries.
If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it's most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war,' Gates said at the TEDx Talk.
'Not missiles, but microbes.'
The Philanthropist feels that even the developed economies are not ready to fight the war against the viruses and said the world was just lucky that Ebola was limited only to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in the 2013 and 2016 outbreak. But even after the outbreak, the world governments did not prepare for a pandemic in the future, and what's the result? Mass contamination, deaths, and economies at a standstill.
Bill Gates also appeared in the documentary released on Netflix in 2019, "Explained" and predicted that China could be the origin of the worst pandemic. The wet areas of China where animal meat is traded, but the hygiene conditions of those markets are sickly and poor.
Bill Gates said in the documentary, "All the while, their viruses are mixing and mutating, increasing the odds that one finds its way to humans." It could be the originator of the deadly disease and spread across the world. The prophecy did come true as it is believed that Coronavirus originated from Wuhan, one of the wet markets in China if history proves anything, the previous epidemic SARC was caused by civet cats and bats, as they are eaten before being killed.
The Philanthropist hosted an," Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit on 18th March 2020 and responded to a question on how to respond to the current crisis, "We do need to stay calm, even though this is an unprecedented situation."
The current closing down of wet markets in China and social distancing to last for the next 18 months till the time the vaccine is not developed and tested is a matter of concern. Responding to the report, Bill Gates responded, "The experience in China is the most critical data we have,' he continued.
'They did their "shut down" and were able to reduce the number of cases. They are testing widely, so they see rebounds immediately, and so far, there has not been a lot. They avoided widespread infection.'
'The Imperial model does not match this experience. Models are only as good as the assumptions put into them,' he explained.'People are working on models that match what we see more closely, and they will become a key tool.'
The Microsoft Mogul said that he is concerned about the economic conditions of the developed and developing countries.
'I worry about all the economic damage,' Gates wrote, noting that wealthy countries here being hit hard at present and would only be able to begin the process of economic recovery after infection rates have been brought under control.Even worse will be how this will affect the developing countries who cannot do the social distancing the same way as rich countries and whose hospital capacity is much lower.'
Bill Gates stated that Coronavirus is behaving like, "One in century" pathogen, and if it isn't controlled, it can lead to the death of 2,00,000 people only in the United States.
All 50 states have reported cases of coronavirus, with New York, Washington and California badly hit
