Amid the widespread of the deadly Coronavirus, several news reports are doing rounds on social media claiming that Microsoft founder, Bill Gates predicted the ‘Chinese coronavirus a year ago’.
According to an article by ‘The Sun,’ the Microsoft founder predicted the Coronavirus which outbroke in China.
The headline of the article dated January 24th, 2020 read: “APOCALYPSE NOW Bill Gates ‘predicted’ Chinese coronavirus a year ago with simulation saying 33 MILLION could die in first six months”
“A time-lapse video explained how a potential outbreak in China could then rapidly spread across the planet, eventually killing 33 million people,” the article read.
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FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above article and found its headline to be misleading.
We dug out the full speech of Bill Gates’ that he had delivered at the Massachusetts Medical Society on April 27, 2018. On analysing the whole speech we found that while speaking about ‘pandemic’ preparedness’, Gates didn’t mention about the location or time in future when the virus could cause havoc.
In his address at the Massachusetts Medical Society, he said: “I am an optimist but there was one area the world was not making much progress. And that’s pandemic preparedness.”
“In the case of biological threats, that sense of urgency is lacking. The world needs to prepare for pandemics in the same serious way it prepares for war,” he added.
He further unveiled a study by the Institute for Disease Modelling (IDM) which laid bare just how quickly a new disease could spread. The time-lapse video, mentions 33 million deaths within six-month of the outbreak, but, Gates or the study by IDM doesn’t mention anything about the outbreak’s location being China.
Here’s the full video of Bill Gates address:
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