Bill Gates believes that the Covid-19 pandemic is entering its final phase, and that after the peak of the Omicron variant the coronavirus will be treated as a common flu. In an interview on Tuesday via Twitter with Devi Sridhar, president of the University of Edinburgh, Bill Gates said that “now that countries are going through the Omicron wave, health services are going to be challenged.” Gates wrote he considers a priority to create vaccines that are effective for several years.
Most of the severe cases are going to be unvaccinated people. Once Omicron passes through a country, then the rest of the year there should be far fewer cases, and therefore Covid-19 can be treated as a seasonal flu
Bill Gates
“The vaccines we have prevent severe disease and death very well, but they are missing two important factors. First, the vaccines still allow infections (outbreaks) and their duration seems to be limited,” he explained to the president of the University of Edinburgh.
The millionaire also took the opportunity to give his opinion on the theories involving him, which put him at the center of a plan to insert chips into people’s arms through vaccines. “People like you, me and Tony Fauci have been the target of a lot of misinformation. I wasn’t expecting it. Like saying that I put chips in arms, it doesn’t make sense to me. Why would I do it?”
In September 2020, in an interview conducted by Fox News, Bill Gates had predicted that the pandemic would end in 2022. The Microsoft cofounder is also one of the leaders, together with his ex-wife, Melinda Gates, of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation philanthropy foundation.
According to Quartz, the foundation is the second largest contributor to the World Health Organization, behind only Germany. In 2021, the foundation donated 680 million euros, with the country in Europe giving 1 billion euros. The United States of America, third on the list of largest contributors, gave €637 million to the World Health Organization.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would invest, according to Reuters, in October last year, 105 million euros for the development of generics of Merck’s drug, the oral pill that serves as treatment for Covid-19.
“We are not yet at the point of classifying Covid-19 as endemic,” said Catherine Smallwood, a senior World Health Organization official in Europe. “We still have a large amount of uncertainty and a virus that is evolving rapidly, which presents us with new challenges. We are certainly not at the point where we can call it endemic,” she concluded.
On Monday January 10th, a record of 1.5 million new Covid cases were reported in the US. Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s top medical advisor, has projected that the current wave of Omicron cases will peak in the U.S. by the end of January. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects a “precipitous decline” in Covid-19 cases once Omicron passes.
