Reference no: EM133432806

Question: We cannot believe that the Covid-19 pandemic enters 4th year. Recently, the World Health Organization Director-General said Covid-19 remains a global health emergency as the world enters the fourth year of the pandemic. But the WHO chief also said, "the end of the emergency phase of the pandemic is closer than ever before."

COVID-19 could be one of the largest public health incidents in human history. The last time was the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in human history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide-about one-third of the planet's population-and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans.

Billionaire Bill Gates, who published a book in2022 called "How to Prevent the Next Pandemic," said he expects federal governments across the world to make those responses much easier before the next global viral outbreak. Poor COVID responses inspired government spending on future pandemic preparedness in multiple countries.

Before this pandemic, Gates predicted coronavirus-like outbreak. He warned that it takes years to find a cure for a new form of virus outbreak. He gave a warning that the world wasn't prepared for pandemics, which should "concern us all." Speaking in 2018, Gates said he believed "the world needs to prepare for pandemics in the same serious way it prepares for war."