Bill Gates sees a silver lining in the massive waves of Omicron that break the records of Covid cases around the world.
In a Twitter Q&A session, the former CEO of Microsoft and founder of the Foundation Bill and Melinda Gates predicted that once Omicron arises in a community, the community will see “Many fewer cases”, which means that the Covid it might “be treated more like a seasonal flu.”
An increase of Omicron “It would create a lot of immunity at least for the next year,” he said. Gates, giving populations a temporary level of herd immunity.
Governments around the world are beginning to consider an eventual shift to a “live with it” approach. virus“That treats the Covid-19 like a endemic disease. Such a tactic would handle the coronavirus as a threat to vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly, but to a large extent it would allow the rest of society to continue their normal lives.
Some countries are already beginning to see a decline in cases
Some of the first countries affected by Omicron they are already beginning to see a decline in cases. The cases in South Africa, where the variant was first discovered, have declined significantly since a peak in mid-December, with one expert calling the increase in cases “a flash flood rather than a wave.”
Scientists are beginning to see similar trends in the United Kingdom and the United States, in part because the rapid increase in cases of coronavirus it means there are fewer people the virus can infect.
Health systems will be challenged by Ómicron
Gates warned, however, that “health systems will be challenged” by Omicron. Although the new variant is relatively milder, the hospitals may still be overwhelmed by the large number of cases of Omicron needing medical attention.
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Hospitals, such as airlines and grocery stores, have been affected by staff shortages as workers with Positive covid they stay at home.
Health authorities in the United States are considering allowing health personnel with Covid-positive go to work if you have mild or no symptoms to help alleviate a shortage of workers in hospitals.
Gates also touched on the problem of misinformation. Public figures like Gates and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have come under fire on social media for their public health councils.
“Putting chips on the arms doesn’t make sense to me, why would I want to do that?” Gates asked, referring to a false conspiracy theory that accuses the billionaire philanthropist of implanting tracking devices in humans via vaccines. Covid-19.
In a Senate hearing Tuesday, Fauci accused Senator Rand Paul of using “a catastrophic epidemic” for political gain, pointing to the senator’s use of “firing Fauci” as a fundraising tactic.
Fauci said that rhetoric “turns crazy people on” and has led to threats once morest him and his family.
The hope of Gates that him Covid finally looks more like the flu is not new. At Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore in November, Gates predicted that hospitalization and mortality rates from Covid they would fall below seasonal flu by mid-2022, assuming no more dangerous new variant emerges in the meantime.
Just a few weeks later, scientists in South Africa announced the discovery of a new highly transmissible Covid variant: Omicron.
For now, Gates believes that the emergence of a more transmissible variant than Omicron not likely. But, he says, “we have been very surprised during this pandemic.”
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