Bill Gates Calls for Global ‘Fire Department’ to Prepare for Future Pandemics

Bill Gates is calling for the world to create a global ‘fire department’ of experts to respond to pandemics.

The billionaire is advocating for the World Health Organization (WHO) to fund its Global Health Emergency Corps, an initiative to tackle transnational health threats.

In an opinion piece published in the New York Times, Gates stressed the need to be prepared for pandemics like COVID-19.

“We need to prepare to fight disease outbreaks just as we prepare to fight fires,” he wrote, urging for “public health leaders from all countries” to participate.

The Microsoft founder has proposed a ‘Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization (GERM)’ network in his 2022 book ‘How to Prevent the Next Pandemic.’

The system, which would be funded by an additional $1 billion to the WHO budget, would be comprised of 3,000 professionals from every country and region.

“To be successful, the Emergency Corps must build on existing networks of experts and be led by people like the heads of national public health agencies and their leads for epidemic response,” Gates proposed.

He also acknowledged the shortcomings of the public health establishment during the COVID pandemic, calling it a “collective failure.”

His own foundation had previously hosted an exercise in October 2019, which was titled ‘Event 201’ and accurately predicted a coronavirus pandemic going global.

“The world must take action now to make sure Covid-19 becomes the last pandemic,” Gates emplored, “and one of the biggest moves we can make is to support the world’s principal health experts—the WHO—and invest in the Global Health Emergency Corps so it can live up to its full potential.”

In an April 2022 blog post, Gates said that GERM would need to be a “permanent organization” with “experts who are fully paid and prepared to mount a coordinated response to a dangerous outbreak at any time.”

He went on to explain how the team would work: “The team’s disease monitoring experts would look for potential outbreaks. Once it spots one, GERM should have the ability to declare an outbreak and work with national governments and the World Bank to raise money for the response very quickly.”

“Product-development experts would advise governments and companies on the highest-priority drugs and vaccines,” he added. “People who understand computer modeling would coordinate the work of modelers around the world. And the team would help create and coordinate responses, such as how and when to implement border closures and recommend mask use.”

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