Bill Gates says we're 'absolutely not' ready for another pandemic
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- Bill Gates has long been a vocal steward of pandemic preparedness and vaccination.
- Gates told WSJ that he estimates a 10-15% chance of another pandemic in the next four years.
- In 2015, the billionaire warned that the world was "not ready" for a deadly outbreak.
Bill Gates said the world is not prepared for another pandemic despite going through COVID-19.
In a recent video interview with The Wall Street Journal's Editor in Chief Emma Tucker, the Microsoft cofounder expressed his concerns about the prospect of another pandemic.
"The chance of a natural pandemic in the next four years is somewhere between 10 and 15 percent," he said. "And it'd be nice to think we're actually we're more ready for that than we were last time. But so far we're not."
"We're absolutely not," he added.
Gates has long been an outspoken proponent of pandemic preparedness and vaccinations.
In a 2015 Ted Talk, the billionaire warned that the world was "not ready" for a deadly outbreak.
Seven years later, he authored "How to Prevent the Next Pandemic," drawing on the lessons learned from COVID-19. That year, the Gates Foundation also committed up to $125 million in the US to "help end the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for future pandemics."
Gates told WSJ the world still isn't prepared for the next outbreak because "people, rather than having a consensus about what tools are missing, are mostly still replaying the various mistakes that were made."
"So, I wouldn't say that we're as far along as you'd expect after trillions of dollars and millions of lives have been lost," he said.
It's unclear how much the US will invest in pandemic preparedness under a second Trump administration.
Federal health agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were recently advised to halt all communications to the public, including press releases, until further notice, NBC News reported.
President Donald Trump also has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the HHS. Kennedy has been a vocal opponent of vaccine mandates and has promoted false or unproven claims about the impacts of vaccines.