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Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,324
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

Can you imagine? 

 

  • An illness like the pandemic 1918 influenza could kill 30 million people within six months, Gates said, adding that the next disease might not even be a flu, but something we've never seen.

 

 

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 6,788
Registered: ‎08-18-2016

Re: Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

Can you put this quote in context for us?

Honored Contributor
Posts: 15,398
Registered: ‎05-23-2015

Re: Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

Google it, it is truly frightening.

" You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,324
Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

@x Hedge

 

Here is part of the Washington Post article.

 

Gates and his wife, Melinda, have repeatedly warned that a pandemic is the greatest immediate threat to humanity. Experts say the risk is high, because new pathogens are constantly emerging and the world is so interconnected.

Many experts agree that the United States remains underprepared for a pandemic or a bioterrorism threat. The government’s sprawling bureaucracy, they say, is not nimble enough to deal with mutations that suddenly turn an influenza virus into a particularly virulent strain, as the 1918 influenza did in killing an estimated 50 million to 100 million people worldwide.

 

Even this winter’s harsh seasonal flu was enough to overwhelm some hospitals, forcing them to pitch tents outside emergency rooms to cope with the crush of patients.

If a highly contagious and lethal airborne pathogen like the 1918 influenza were to take hold today, nearly 33 million people worldwide would die in just six months, Gates noted in his prepared remarks, citing a simulation done by the Institute for Disease Modeling, a research organization in Bellevue, Wash.

In those remarks, Gates highlighted scientific and technical advances in the development of better vaccines, drugs and diagnostics that he said could revolutionize preparation for and treatment of infectious diseases. He praised last year’s formation of a new global coalition, known as CEPI, to create new vaccines for emerging infectious diseases. He also announced a $12 million Grand Challenge in partnership with the family of Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page to accelerate the development of a universal flu vaccine.

But vaccines, he noted, take time to research, deploy and generate protective immunity.

an effective global preparedness and response system.

So we need to invest in other approaches, like antiviral drugs and antibody therapies that can be stockpiled or rapidly manufactured to stop the spread of pandemic diseases or treat people who have been exposed,” he said in his speech.

Among the advances in these areas are a new influenza antiviral recently approved in Japan that Gates said “stops the virus in its tracks” by inhibiting an enzyme it needs to multiply; research on antibodies that could protect against a pandemic strain of a virus; and a diagnostic test that harnesses the powerful genetic-engineering technology known as CRISPR and has the field-use potential to check a patient’s blood, saliva or urine for evidence of multiple pathogens. That test could, for example, identify whether someone is infected with Zika or dengue virus, which have similar symptoms.

But even the best tools in the world won’t be sufficient, Gates said, if the United States doesn’t have a strategy to harness and coordinate resources at home and help to lead

an effective global preparedness and response system.

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,713
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

Did he disclose what his stock holdings are in Merck?

Honored Contributor
Posts: 17,739
Registered: ‎03-09-2010

Re: Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

This has been a worry for sometime. Pres GW Bush was reading a popular book, while in office ,called Pandemic, I think

 

If you look at the statistics of the flu victims, during WW1 ,you will see more people were killed by the flu, than by the war

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,146
Registered: ‎09-12-2010

Re: Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

And a former vice president of our country predicted the world would end several years ago because of global warming. And a well known scientist many years ago predicted that the entire Midwest would suffer catastrophic damages with a New Madrid earthquake in Missouri and surrounding states - the predictions never end. I'm concerned about our electrical grid in this country. That said - we can't live our lives based on "scary pandemic predictions". An asteroid could hit our planet tomorrow...just saying.

Honored Contributor
Posts: 19,843
Registered: ‎10-25-2010

Re: Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

I worry about Terrorists taking down the whole grid and germ warfare.  

 

Our government is worried about the same thing. They are trying to prevent

this from happening, but we all know it is probably impossible.

 

i don’t think we can be fully prepared to deal with either catastrophe. 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 18,415
Registered: ‎11-25-2011

Re: Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

I’ve seen too many articles calling Obesity a pandemic issue. 

There are no evil terrorists behind it or ‘season’ like the flu.

In fact, the benign nature of food & emotion is the

’wolf in sheep’s clothing’ which is making the World sick.

And with obesity, there’s diabetes & heart disease around the corner.

 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 20,400
Registered: ‎03-13-2010

Re: Bill Gates scary pandemic prediction...

FEAR would be the worst pandemic

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