The German health minister said that “new pandemics are certain” and that “the only question is: when and are we better prepared then.”
Health minister Karl Lauterbach met with billionaire Bill Gates and the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, during the Munich Security Conference this past weekend.
Lauterbach posted a photo of the three of them on Twitter with the following message:
With @BillGates and WHO Director General @DrTedros at the Munich Security Conference. New pandemics are certain. The only question is: when and are we better prepared then. That’s what we’ve been working on.
The Munich Security conference is an annual meeting about international security issues, in which politicians and important figures from the corporate world take part. In 2017, Gates gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference, in which he predicted that a “highly lethal global pandemic will occur in our lifetimes.” He also stated that “[w]e may not know if that weapon is man-made or a product of nature.”
“I view the threat of deadly pandemics right up there with nuclear war and climate change,” Gates said in 2017. “Getting ready for a global pandemic is every bit as important as nuclear deterrence and avoiding a climate catastrophe.”