Bill Gates returns to pronounce on the future of the pandemic of coronavirus and what it holds for the new year 2022. A forecast that, on this occasion, leaves room for optimism: according to the technology mogul, “the end is finally in sight”. This is stated in a long entry published this Tuesday on his personal blog, ‘Gates Notes’, entitled precisely “Reasons for optimism after a difficult year.”
In it, Gates reflects on how, although “in some respects” 2021 has been better than 2020, influencing the advancement of vaccination against COVID-19, this improvement “has not been as dramatic” as he expected. In this regard, it regrets that more people have died from the virus in the past year than in the previous year.
In addition, he adds that, due to the delta variant and the challenges that have arisen with respect to the acceptance of the vaccine, now “we’re not as close to the end as i hoped“I did not foresee that such a transmissible variant would appear and I underestimated how difficult it would be to convince people to get the vaccine and continue using masks,” he admits.
Despite this, the Microsoft founder is “hopeful” that “the end is finally in sight.” “It might be stupid to make another prediction, but I think the acute phase of the pandemic will come to an end sometime in 2022“, he wishes.
The omicron variant, “worrisome”
However, for Gates “there is no doubt that the omicron variant is concerning“, despite which he insists:”The world is more prepared to face potentially bad variants than at any other time in the pandemic so far. “In this sense, he emphasizes that” we have caught this variant earlier “than the delta and” we are in a much better position to create updated vaccines if necessary. ”
Thus, the billionaire and philanthropist says he hopes that “sometime next year”, COVID-19 “will become an endemic disease in most places.” “In a few years, my hope is that the only time you really have to think about the virus is when you get the COVID and flu vaccine every fall,” adds Gates, who also reflects in his post about the lessons. learned about the global response to the pandemic “that will make us better prepared next time.”
“I believe that 2022 will be a year in which many of us will finally settle into a new normal. post-pandemic “, says Gates in his reflection at the end of the year, in which he also addresses the diminishing trust in institutions, digitization or climate change, and which you can read in full (in English) in this link.
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