Bill Gates on Covid: ‘I don’t want to be a voice of doom and gloom,’ but ‘the worst’ could still be ahead

Bill Gates on Covid: ‘I don’t want to be a voice of doom and gloom,’ but ‘the worst’ could still be ahead

After more than two years of Covid-19, plenty of people are lowering their guards. But the pandemic isn't over yet — and, warns, the worst might still be ahead. "We're still at risk of this pandemic generating a variant that would be even more transmissive and even more fatal," the billionaire Microsoft co-founder and public health advocate on Sunday. "It's not likely, I don't want to be a voice of doom and gloom, but it's way above a 5% risk that this pandemic, we haven't even seen the worst of it." New Covid cases, powered by the BA.2 subvariant of Covid's omicron strain, are currently growing across the U.S.: The country's seven-day average of daily new U.S. cases is up to 54,429 as of Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University data. That's a 9% increase over the week prior, with cases growing in 39 states over that time frame. But Covid-related deaths are declining, leading White House Covid czar Dr. Ashish Jha that he's "not overly concerned right now" about BA.2. Rather, its spread is more a reminder that Covid is still lurking — and as Gates notes, the virus could potentially mutate again, resulting in a strain of greater