The new coronavirus could be a “once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about,” according to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
“I hope it’s not that bad, but we should assume it will be until we know otherwise,” the billionaire philanthropist said in a Friday article for the New England Journal of Medicine. “There are two reasons that Covid-19 is such a threat. First, it can kill healthy adults in addition to elderly people with existing health problems. The data so far suggest that the virus has a case fatality risk around 1%; this rate would make it many times more severe than typical seasonal influenza, putting it somewhere between the 1957 influenza pandemic (0.6%) and the 1918 influenza pandemic (2%).”
The second reason Gates gave had to do with the transmission of the virus.
“The average infected person spreads the disease to two or three others — an exponential rate of increase,” he said. “There is also strong evidence that it can be transmitted by people who are just mildly ill or even presymptomatic.”
The foundation founded by Gates and his wife Melinda, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, announced this month that it would donate up to $100 million to help fight the virus.
The World Health Organization raised the coronavirus health risk up to “very high” on Friday, but it has not declared it a pandemic. The virus has spread to six continents, excluding Antarctica. More than 80,000 people have been infected globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, mostly in mainland China. There are at least 63 patients with coronavirus and no deaths so far in the United States.
The uncertainty from the virus has caused stocks to plunge with the market suffering its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis. The world’s five richest people, including Gates, have lost a combined $36 billion from the market because of fears over the coronavirus.
Gates urged governments and industries around the world to work together to work on vaccines and make them affordable.
“There is no time to waste,” he said.
