Since the onset of the pandemic, over 200 million COVID-19 infections and more than five million deaths from the virus have been recorded worldwide, making 2021 a horrible year for millions of people all over the world.
However, a South China Morning Post report specified that Microsoft Corporation co-founder Bill Gates is optimistic about the coming year saying, he thinks "the acute phase of the pandemic" will come to a close some time next year.
To this tech billionaire-turned-philanthropist, this year, there hasn't been much improvement to the global health crisis as he had hoped.
With more deaths from the virus this year than last year, the COVID-19 Delta Variant, and challenges with the acceptance and approval of vaccines, progress has been "underwhelming," specified the billionaire specified in a year in review post on his blog early this week.
Prediction Comes Amidst Threat of Omicron
According to Gates, he underestimated how challenging it would be to convince the public to get vaccinated and continue masking.
His forecast comes as the world currently deals with the new Omicron variant, and the cases in the United States are reaching 50 million.
He said there is no question that this new variant is concerning. However, he added, "here's what we do know," the world is better prepared when it comes to tackling bad variants compared to any "other point in the pandemic thus far."
The Microsoft executive approximated that while it is presently roughly ten times more deadly than the flu, vaccines and antiviral treatments could help reduce by 50 percent.
He elaborated, communities will still witness occasional outbreaks, although new drugs will be available that could address most cases. On the other hand, hospitals will be able to handle the rest.
Emphasizing the Importance of Vaccines and NPIs
In his Year in Review in his GatesNotes blog site, the philanthropist said he thinks mRNA vaccines "will ultimately be seen" as the pandemic's most significant breakthrough.
He elaborated, proving that mRNA is effective as a vaccine platform has been a huge game-changer, not just for this ongoing pandemic, "but for the next one, too."
As detailed in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site, mRNA has now been well established, and safe and effective vaccines will be developed ultra-fast in the future, Gates wrote in the review.
In his blog article, he also tackled the non-pharmaceutical interventions or NPIs, that he said will inform the response to the disease moving forward.
More Prepared for the Next Pandemic
NPIs include mandates on masking, quarantine guidelines, and travel restrictions. Gates also said the past couple of years had allowed everyone to see the effectiveness of different schemes against a respiratory illness like COVID-19.
Next time, he wrote, the world will be more prepared to deploy cost-oriented and easy tools like masks much faster, and governments will have better insight into the time and manner of deploying more burdensome schemes such as lockdowns.
For Gates, even though stopping a pandemic is eventually falling on governments and systems, the past two years have made people realize that even individuals can make an actual impact.
Information about Gates' prediction for 2022 is shown on his YouTube video below:
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