Bill Gates has had pandemics on his mind for a while now.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said it would commit $10 billion over the next decade to foster research and deliver vaccines for the world's poorest countries, with Gates saying that "We must make this the decade of vaccines."
Despite not having any medical training, Gates has used his money and the influence of the Foundation to become one of the global thought leaders on communicable diseases.
In early 2019, Gates called the $10 billion the best investment he's ever made in a essay for the Wall Street Journal. Gates explained in the essay that while he expects 90% of his tech investments to fail, the vaccine business is much more of a sure bet.
The Gates Foundation believes that it can save millions of children in poor countries by advancing vaccine science. And there is money to be made in the process.
"Decades ago, these investments weren’t sure bets, but today, they almost always pay off in a big way," he said.
How big? Well in the Journal essay, Gates said that the foundation was able to turn the $10 billion investment in vaccines, drugs, bed nets (to protect from mosquitoes) has turned into $200 billion in social and economic benefits.
Over the past few weeks, Gates has been on the media circuit promoting his new book "How to Prevent the Next Pandemic" on BBC, the Today Show, and The Daily Show, among other outlets.
But the promo tour may have to take a pause after Gates revealed some news on Twitter this week.
Bill Gates Tests Positive
On May 10, Gates announced that he has tested positive for the virus he has been helping fight for the last two years.
The timing was unfortunate as Gates revealed that May 10 was the first time in two years that the Gates Foundation had an in-person meeting, which Gates attended virtually via Microsoft Teams.
The U.S. recently passed the ignominious threshold of 1 million Americans dead from Covid-19, and Gates has been vocal throughout the pandemic about his views on how to stop the spread and fatality of the virus.
And in the meantime, he has become even more wealthy than he ever was.
Gates' net worth was about $98 billion in 2020. In 2022, his fortune has ballooned to nearly $130 billion, according to Forbes,
He wasn't the only billionaire to see his wealth grow during the pandemic while the rest of the world suffered.
In fact, the world's 10 richest people, of which Bill Gates is the fourth wealthiest behind Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bernard Arnault, added $402 billion to their wealth last year.
Bill Gates' Battle Against Covid
The Gates Foundation has been extremely active in the developing world, investing billions into vaccines in some of the poorest countries on earth.
So it was surprising that initially, the Gates Foundation came out against lifting patent protections for the coronavirus vaccine.
Gates himself came out against waving some of the provisions of the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. That waiver would allow member nations of the WTO to stop enforcing the patents, allowing low- and middle-income countries to produce generic versions of the vaccine.
Gates met with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to make the case for keeping the protections last April.
When your foundation has $10 billion invested in vaccines, taking money off the table, even during a once-in-a-generation (hopefully) pandemic, was too much to ask for the world's fourth wealthiest man.
"I rarely think Bill Gates is wrong, but this is a case I hope he will engage," said Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna. India is one of the emerging countries that benefitted most from relaxed Covid vaccine patent rules.
Eventually, the foundation reversed course, after some public pressure, and said in May last year that "No barriers should stand in the way of equitable access to vaccines," according to Devex World.
One can only hope Gates' plan to prevent the next pandemic isn't tied directly to his financial investments, because for four months in 2021 he chose making money over saving lives in the countries he and his Foundation purport to want to save.
