Bill Gates says, ‘Bioterrorism is the next big disaster’
Bioterrorism is the next threat facing humanity, billionaire Bill Gates has revealed in an interview with science YouTuber Derek Muller on his channel, Veritasium.
Gates, who predicted the pandemic in 2015, told Muller that bioterrorism, which is when someone who wants to cause damage engineers a virus, is likely the next “disaster” that humans aren’t prepared for.
“So it means the chance of running into this [virus] is more than just the naturally caused epidemics like the current one,” Gates said.
And it’s not the first time Gates has flagged bioterrorism as a huge threat - one bigger than a nuclear war. In 2017, Gates took to Reddit to field questions from fans, and said: “I am concerned about biological tools that could be used by a bioterrorist.”
That same year, the billionaire told The Telegraph it would be “relatively easy” to engineer a new flu strain. Unlike a nuclear war though, the disease wouldn’t stop killing once it was released.
Bill Gates surprised by virus conspiracy theories
"Crazy" and "evil." That’s what Bill Gates thinks about the volume of conspiracy theories about him spreading on social media during the coronavirus pandemic. In an interview with Reuters, the Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist said the combination of a frightening pandemic and the rise of social media likely fostered the millions of online posts and those theories about him and the U.S.' top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci. "Nobody would have predicted that I and Dr. Fauci would be so prominent in really kind of evil theories about, you know, did we create the pandemic or are we trying to profit from it and on and on. And so, I'm very surprised by that. I hope it goes away.” Through his foundation, the billionaire has committed at least $1.75 billion to the global response to the health crisis. He’s baffled by the claims that he and Fauci created the pandemic to try to control people and that they wanted to use vaccines to insert trackable microchips into people. “Do people really believe that stuff? I'm, you know, we're going to have to get educated about this over the next year and understand, you know, how does it change people's behavior? How should we have minimized this either, you know, working with the social media companies or explaining what we were up to in a better way?" As vaccines are being rolled out across the world, Gates also said good communication and good leadership are key to getting more people inoculated. “The benefit to society, everyone or a high percentage of people participating should be very clear. Although, you know, all the crazy conspiracy theories may cut into that.” He also praised Fauci and U.S. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins as "smart" and "wonderful people" and said he was "excited" about the team that President Joe Biden has assembled to handle the health crisis.
Climate change
The next disaster that humans aren’t prepared for is climate change, Gates said.
“That would be a death toll even greater than we’ve had in this pandemic,” he said.
Last year, Gates wrote in his blog GatesNotes that by 2060, climate change could be just as deadly as the pandemic, and by 2100, it could be five times as deadly.
“In the next decade or two, the economic damage caused by climate change will likely be as bad as having a COVID-sized pandemic every ten years,” he said.
“And by the end of the century, it will be much worse if the world remains on its current emissions path.”
Facing another pandemic
Gates told Muller that much like COVID, another pandemic could still wreak havoc on the world, despite any lessons learned in this one.
“We could increase our preparedness so we never have a death toll anywhere near what we have today,” Gates said.
“We were lucky that the fatality here is not not super high, but we can nip it in the bud. It'll still get to a lot of countries, but the number of deaths...with the right system should be a tenth of what we've seen here.”
Bill Gates: The Next 4 to 6 Months Could Be the Worst of COVID-19
The next 4 to 6 months of the pandemic could be the worst yet, according to Bill Gates. » Subscribe to NowThis: http://go.nowth.is/News_Subscribe » Sign up for our newsletter KnowThis to get the biggest stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox: https://go.nowth.is/KnowThis In US news and current events today, Bill Gates appeared on CNN to discuss the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Though the COVID-19 vaccine is finally starting to roll out, former Microsoft CEO and founder Bill Gates believes the next 4 to 6 months could be the worst of the entire pandemic. COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 deaths are hitting all time highs in the U.S. and experts believe the COVID-19 pandemic will get worse before before it gets better thanks to the vaccine
Source: https://in.style.yahoo.com/bill-gates-bioterrorism-disaster-062732558.html
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