Microsoft founder Bill Gates believes the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is yet to come.
Speaking with Politico earlier this week, Gates warned that an uptick in positive coronavirus tests in the United States at the end of summer is to be expected as most of the country heads into the winter season creating greater opportunities for the highly-contagious disease to spread.
“The fall is going to be worse than the summer,” Gates said. “All the numbers are ticking up, and that was always a very good chance that as people go indoors and it’s colder, that we would see more transmission.”
A growing number of states, especially in the Midwest and Mountain West regions, have recorded new records for positive weekly case numbers.
Although there remains some debate about the true measure of the pandemic’s severity given an early lack of widespread testing, Gates and others have called for a vaccination to be produced and administered to ward off continued spread of the disease.
Asked about a hypothetical vaccination, Gates said there has often been skepticism about new vaccinations throughout history but stressed the importance of “political leaders” to “get out” the message that inoculations are not only safe but an important measure to getting life back to some sort of normalcy.
“Here, what you’d want to see is, where are we not getting the compliance?” Gates asked. “And who are the leaders they look to? Political leaders, religious leaders, scientific leaders — and have that message get out.”
Two U.S. companies, Eli Lilly and Johnson and Johnson, have begun Phase 3 trials on antibody treatments for the virus, and President Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to have a vaccination by the end of the year.
Gates credited the first economic stimulus bill passed in March with staving off an economic depression before adding that he thinks Congress should “clearly” pass a second stimulus bill in a “timely manner.”
