I don't think Bill Gates, who has been openly against opening up intellectual property on vaccines, might be the person we ought to listen when it comes to global protection from pandemics.<p>In reality, the participation of private entities with profit-seeking interest in world health is not really something I can support. We already have a pandemic protection organisation which is supposed to be the WHO; but they're not really listened to when they say "hey we need to free the vaccines because the poor people cannot get vaccinated" and so on.<p>Prevention could be seen as a different game, but I think they are prey to the same short comings. Is Bill Gates really interested in stopping pandemics? Or is he more interested in pandemics playing out in a way that is beneficial to his interests. He was the one telling people in Africa that were dying from aids how it was so important that we keep the intelectual property model intact that was making the price of medicine impossible to access because, well, innovation!<p>Man, some people might argue against bureaucracy and governments and states "meddling". But that's such a rose-tinted way of viewing the world. States, specially those in most need, have almost no power against the interests of mega corporations and the interests of rich states who, in turn, are doing everything they can to protect their own self interests as well. The world's health problems are not at all about efficiency, the problem is precisely that big corporations are extremely efficient at wielding their influence to make more money.<p>Profits of big pharma are as good as they have ever been, yet world health is in such a sorrowful state. Hundreds of people are dying in poor countries that have extremely low vaccination rates, whereas people in rich countries get... what, their fourth booster shot?<p>I think we need to listen more to experts in the field about what to do; rather than tech billionaires with vested interests.