Bill Gates says ‘every country’ must do ‘what Australia did’ to prevent the next pandemic

The preventative measures that Australia imposed upon their citizens throughout the COVID pandemic have been praised by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates who is already making plans for the “next pandemic.”

While speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Gates spoke favorably about the measures that Australia took, CNBC reported. “They orchestrated diagnostics, they executed quarantine policies, and they have a death rate in a different league than other rich countries.”

“And everybody had the capability to do that,” Gates added of the policies that he considers the gold standard. Gates also said of utilizing the Australian example, “If every country does what Australia did, then you wouldn’t be calling [the next outbreak] a pandemic.”

Gates cited Australia’s Covid response as the gold standard to follow. Australia reopened its international borders recently for the first time since March 2020. 

Australia’s Covid measures have prompted several protests, however the measures seem to have rendered some success: Since the beginning of the pandemic, only 20 per 100,000 Australians have died from Covid, according to a New York Times analysis of John Hopkins University data. 

Vaccine rates in Australia are also relatively high with 81% of the country’s population fully vaccinated against Covid, according to John Hopkins University data. For comparison, less than 65% of the U.S. is currently fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.