RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In a post on his personal blog, Microsoft founder Bill Gates shared his views on the crisis and outlined strategies he believes are required to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Gates says the pandemic resembles a world war, except that in this case, we can all work together to learn about the disease and develop tools to fight it. The billionaire points out that innovations need to happen in five areas: treatments, vaccines, testing, contact tracking, and policies to reopen the economy.
For years, Gates has been funding health and sustainability research projects through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He helped start the coalition of innovations in epidemic preparedness, which is funding research on vaccines against the novel coronavirus.
“Whenever there is an epidemic like Ebola, SARS or Zika, we work with governments and the private sector to help model risk and mobilize resources to develop new tools to prevent the epidemic,” Gates says in the paper, adding: “An urgent priority is to raise money for the development of new tools. I think of it as the billions we need to spend so that we can save trillions”.
The entrepreneur and philanthropist points out the innovations developed during World War II, such as radar, reliable torpedoes, and code breaking, which ultimately contributed to the swift end of the conflict, and believes that the same will happen again with the pandemic.
Gates has shared what he deems critical to overcoming the coronavirus pandemic in each area:
First, a treatment for those with coronavirus that is approximately 95 percent effective so people feel safe at major public events again. Unless we have such effective treatments, we will need a vaccine to help us get back to normal.
In the text, he points out that the need to develop a vaccine is critical to getting us back to normal even if the best treatments would reduce deaths from Covid-19 by less than 95 percent.
Gates recognized the challenges of developing a vaccine quickly, saying that a typical immunization may take five years to reach the market. He believes the 18-month time frame set by government officials is more likely, but that it may take longer or occur a little sooner.
Microsoft’s founder points out that regulators worldwide will need to work together to determine the size of the safety database to approve a vaccine.
Testing plays a crucial role in helping countries reopen and needs to be widely available to anyone with COVID-19 symptoms, as well as people who have come into contact with them. Gates said conducting extensive coronavirus testing at home would be ideal.
“Tests become extremely important when a country is considering opening. You want to perform many tests so you perceive critical points and you can step in by changing the policy before numbers increase. You can’t wait until hospitals start filling up and the death toll rises,” he wrote.
Screening individuals who have been in contact with people infected with the coronavirus, known as contact screening, can help prevent outbreaks, Gates said.
He added that hiring more people to perform this task is critical and that he hopes many countries will follow Germany’s approach, which requires substantial effort.
Gates stressed that decisions on how to reopen different parts of the economy will be challenging and will require government leaders to ponder the rewards.
“The rules on what is allowed should be gradually changed so that we may assess whether the level of contact is starting to increase the number of infections. Countries can learn from other countries that have strong testing systems to advise them when issues arise. The basic principle should be to allow activities that greatly benefit the economy or human welfare, but pose a small risk of infection”.
He said schools should reopen quickly because they provide a great benefit to society, while big events like sports games should wait longer. Many other decisions need to be made, he said, such as how many people may be sitting in a restaurant or how to reconfigure plants to distribute worker space.
The entrepreneur concludes the text by saying that the moment will define the modern era and that the impacts of this pandemic on the most vulnerable populations should be of particular concern to governments. In this scenario, developing policies during the reopening of their markets is required, focusing on the preservation of human rights and the prevention of social inequality from growing.
“We are impressed by how the world is joining together to fight this struggle. Every day we talk to scientists from universities and small businesses, CEOs from pharmaceutical companies, or heads of government to ensure that the new tools I discussed are made available as soon as possible. And there are so many heroes to look up to now, including health professionals on the front line”.
Source: InfoMoney