Coronavirus: Bill Gates’ grim prognosis is …

“Unfortunately, the next four to six months could be the worst of the pandemic. Forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME, for its acronym in English), indicates that there will be another 200,000 more deaths. If we followed the rules, when it came to wearing masks and not mixing, we could prevent a large percentage of those deaths. In the short term, this is bad news, ”he said.

He also pointed out that when he made predictions about the global consequences that a pandemic could bring in 2015, he did the math thinking that the United States would perform better than it showed.

“I thought the United States would do a better job. When I made the forecast in 2015, I said the deaths could be higher. So this virus could be deadlier than it is. We are not in the worst case. But what surprised me is that the economic impact in the United States and around the world has been far greater than the forecasts I made five years ago, ”he said in a commentary. interview with CNN.

Bill Gates also mentioned the executive order signed by President Donald Trump to “put Americans first” in administering COVID-19 vaccines. In this regard, he stressed that the strategy is a “mistake”, because the best way to overcome the pandemic is to bet on “international cooperation”.

“We want the global economy to continue to function, we want to minimize fatalities and the core technology comes from a German company. Therefore, blocking international trade and cooperation has been disruptive and has been a mistake throughout the pandemic, ”he said.

In his opinion, the distribution of vaccines should not answer a question of nationality or wealth, but of medical necessity.

“This epidemic has been terrible in that it has exacerbated inequalities. It’s worse for Hispanics, worse for African Americans, worse for low-income service workers, multigenerational households. A number of things that mean that in terms of choosing who gets the vaccine, we need to better use fairness to make all of these decisions, ”he said.

The problems of the presidential transition have hurt the fight against COVID-19, he noted, adding that “the new administration is ready to trust real experts and not attack these experts. They are making mistakes. clear plans. So I think we’re going to get over that in some way. positive. I am pleased with the people and the priority that President-elect Biden and his team are bringing to this problem. “

While he believes that the change of administration will be favorable when defining a strategy to deal with the pandemic in the coming months, he insists that Americans will also have to take responsibility.

“We can see this will end and you don’t want someone you love to be the last to die from COVID-19. Bars and restaurants in most parts of the country will be closed as we get into this wave and I think that’s unfortunately appropriate. Depending on its severity, the decision on schools is much more complicated, because there the profits are quite high, the amount of transmission is not the same as in bars and restaurants, ”said Bill Gates, who also announced that will vaccinate publicly, as well as former presidents like Bill Clinton, George Bush or Barack Obama.