Bill Gates Pushing for ‘GERM Team’ to Counter ‘Next Pandemic’

Gates calls this team one of the ‘most important things we can do to prevent the next pandemic.”

QUICK FACTS:
  • Tech billionaire Bill Gates says that another pandemic is likely to hit the world in the next 20 years and is calling on preventative measures in the form of a new “Global Epidemic Response Mobilisation” (GERM) team.
  • According to Interesting Engineering, this team would be led by the World Health Organization and cost around $1 billion to operate every year.
  • Gates is asking for an increase in budgetary allocations toward health from nations involved in the WHO and is urging countries to increase coordination to fend off global health threats.
GATES’ BLOG ABOUT THE ‘GERM TEAM’ AND THE LIKELIHOOD OF ANOTHER PANDEMIC:
  • “People travel more, we are invading natural habitat, it is very likely that in the next 20 years we will have another pandemic. We need to have that readiness so that every country can stop the outbreak before it goes global or at least limit the deaths like the very best countries did this time around,” Gates said. 
  • According to his own blog, the tech tycoon laments the lack of a viral containment team like the one seen in the movie Outbreak: “A full-time team like this doesn’t exist in real life—yet. I’m hoping this changes soon, because it is one of the most important things we can do to prevent the next pandemic,” he said.
  • “We need a permanent organization of experts who are fully paid and prepared to mount a coordinated response to a dangerous outbreak at any time. In my book, I propose that we call this group the GERM—Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization—team.”
  • “It’s important that GERM have a diverse workforce. The team is going to serve the entire world—it only makes sense that its members reflect the experiences and backgrounds of the people they’re going to work with. Ideally, GERM would have a high number of local experts from countries at a higher risk of outbreak, and outsiders would only show up when necessary and when the in-country team requests help,” Gates went on to say.
  • In his video promoting the program, Gates stated, “The team will need to regularly organize outbreak simulations, [or] germ games, that test the global response system and finds the weak spots.”
BACKGROUND:
  • Mr. Gates recently wrote a book called, “How to Prevent the Next Pandemic,” where he outlines the steps that he believes the world needs to take to avoid another pandemic.
  • Questions have been raised, particularly among conservatives, about why someone involved in technology, like Gates, is so interested in virology. POLITICO even called him “the world’s most powerful doctor,” though he doesn’t even have a college degree.

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