If every country acts like Australia, it will be able to prevent the next epidemic from escalating into a pandemic
Microsoft founder Bill Gates said a to CNBC. One of the world’s richest people spends billions of dollars of his fortune on vaccine research and epidemic prevention.
According to Gates, if an outbreak develops, it must be suppressed in a germ, as Australia has done. With early restrictions stricter than in most countries around the world. You must continue to be tough for some time, even under public pressure.
Australia’s defense may be the “gold standard” to follow. The country has only recently opened its borders, as citizens returning from other countries and foreigners entering the country have been quarantined under the supervision of the military and police during the pandemic. Moreover, some regions have ordered lockdowns within the country.
Earlier, Bill Gates saidThe risk of serious illness from Covid-19 has been “significantly reduced”, but another pandemic is almost certain. According to him, a possible new pandemic will likely come from a pathogen other than the coronavirus family:
There will be another pandemic. Next time there will be another nurse.
But he added that advances in medical technology could help the world do a better job of fighting the disease if the investment was made now.
Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, Gates said, the worst effects have worn off as a significant portion of the world’s population has gained some level of immunity. With the latest omicron variant, disease severity has also decreased. However, Gates said that in many places this is due to the virus itself, which creates a certain level of immunity and has “reached the world’s population better than we have with vaccines.”
According to Microsoft’s father, it is “too late” to reach the World Health Organization’s goal of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population by mid-2022. Currently, 61.9% of the world’s population has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
He added that the world needed to move faster in developing and distributing vaccines in the future, and called on governments to invest now:
Next time, we should try to get six months instead of two
Gates told CNBC earlier, adding that modular platforms, including RNA (mRNA) technology, will make this possible.
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