Bill Gates on pandemic preparedness
From Bill Gates on lessons learnt from Covid-19 and how to prevent the next pandemic · · Times Of India
“if a new pathogen with a high fatality rate got out and we didn't have therapies or vaccines you know we would need to use lockdowns now most respiratory pathogens don't have a high fatality rate you know human to human transmissible there are exceptions measles in a naive population you know will kill um you know almost 20 percent uh smallpox in a naive population you know would kill over 30 percent so those are just extreme”
On , Bill Gates, Co-chair of Gates Foundation at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke about pandemic preparedness during Bill Gates on lessons learnt from Covid-19 and how to prevent the next pandemic on Times Of India.
About Bill Gates
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation, faced renewed scrutiny in February 2026 following the release of Justice Department documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. The documents included draft emails, apparently written by Epstein to himself, containing graphic and unverified allegations about Gates. Gates denied the claims in interviews, stating that he only attended dinners with Epstein, never went to Epstein's island, and never met any women through him. He said he regretted every minute spent with Epstein and apologized for the association. His ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, said in response to the documents that questions about the allegations were for her ex-husband to answer, not her. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026, Gates focused on global health and artificial intelligence. He announced a $50 million partnership between the Gates Foundation and OpenAI called "Horizon 1000," which aims to deploy AI tools in 1,000 primary healthcare clinics in Africa, starting in Rwanda. Gates described the initiative as a way to improve healthcare quality and efficiency by using AI to reduce paperwork and help patients communicate in their local languages. He also warned that global health funding cuts had led to an increase in childhood deaths for the first time in 25 years, with 4.8 million children under five dying in 2025 compared to 4.6 million the year before. Gates said the U.S. aid cuts were "abrupt and cruel" and expressed hope that funding would be restored.