Bill Gates: Covid's Threat May Have Passed, But Another Pandemic Is Imminent

Is another pandemic lurking around the corner? Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates seems to think so.

When speaking with CNBC, Gates said that the threat of getting severe symptoms from COVID-19 has been “dramatically reduced,” but that the emergence of another pandemic is unavoidable.

“We’ll have another pandemic,” he said. “It will be a different pathogen next time.” The co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said that the next pandemic would originate from the coronavirus lineage.

He does believe, however, that the odds of contracting severe disease from COVID-19 have decreased with the omicron variant as immunity continues to rise. "The chance of severe disease, which is mainly associated with being elderly and having obesity or diabetes, those risks are now dramatically reduced because of that infection exposure," he said.

Gates does believe that the virus itself, however, has “done a better job of getting out to the world population than we have with vaccines,” citing the World Health Organization’s aspirations to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population by the middle of this year.

Gates has been a well-known figure in regards to COVID-19 relief, with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation having donated millions of dollars in contributions.