Bill Gates has urged everyone to ‘stay calm’ during the coronavirus pandemic and claimed that some recent doomsday projections are ‘too negative’.
Instead of lasting 18 months until a vaccine can be developed, the present crisis may only last six to 10 weeks in some countries, the businessman added.
Mr Gates — who recently announced his plans to leave the board of Microsoft — is also known for his philanthropic work, including in the area of global health.
The Microsoft founder shared his thoughts on the coronavirus crisis during an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Reddit on March 18, 2020.
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‘We do need to stay calm, even though this is an unprecedented situation,’ Mr Gates wrote in response to a question about what people can do to help during the crisis.
‘A big thing is to go along with the “shut down” approach in your community so that the infection rate drops dramatically to let us go back to normal as soon as possible.’
An early question concerned a recent report from Imperial College London, which suggested that, if uncontrolled, the coronavirus could potentially kill more than two million people in the United States alone.
Furthermore, the study suggested that the current social distancing tactics that are seeing many people mainly confined to their homes could last for some 18 months, until a vaccine against the infection could be developed.
On the report, Mr Gates said that, ‘fortunately, it appears that the parameters used in that model were too negative.’
‘The experience in China is the most critical data we have,‘ he continued.
‘They did their “shut down” and were able to reduce the number of cases. They are testing widely so they see rebounds immediately and so far there have not been a lot. They avoided widespread infection.’
‘The Imperial model does not match this experience. Models are only as good as the assumptions put into them,’ he explained.
‘People are working on models that match what we are seeing more closely and they will become a key tool.’
One such group — the Institute for Disease Modeling — receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Mr Gates went on to predict that if a given country does a ‘good job‘ at both testing people and implementing shutdown and social distancing policies ‘then within 6–10 weeks [said nation] should see very few cases and be able to open back up.’
‘I worry about all the economic damage,’ Mr Gates wrote, noting that wealthy countries here being hit hard at present and would only be able to begin the process of economic recovery after infection rates have been brought under control.
‘Even worse will be how this will affect the developing countries who cannot do the social distancing the same way as rich countries and whose hospital capacity is much lower.’
The full ‘Ask Me Anything’ session can be read on Reddit.
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