How to Prevent the Next Pandemic was the second book I read from Bill Gates. The first was How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, which quickly turned out to be one of my favorite books, reason why I was so curious to read this one.
In terms of writing style, both books are quite similar. Bill Gates is pragmatic on the elaboration of a topic, his opinion, on facts and information that put every reader up-to-date and informed.
In this book, he starts by doing an introduction to what went well and wrong with the COVID pandemic, proposing then the creation of a global group similar to fireman’s group, but to handle regional and global pandemics.
He then moves on to showcase some examples of detection / programs to detect new diseases, mainly pandemics and epidemics, and how to test from the very beginning and efficiently. On the same subject, he introduces his vision on how to act fast and efficiently and how the pandemic evolves, as well as the measures to be taken and mask types.
After this, a presentation is made on the treatments (medicines and others), in the beginning and after, as well as the discovery and approval process, which sometimes in history was accidental. The information moves on to the vaccines, from their origin, types, production, distribution, effects, etc.
Moving on to the future and in order to prevent the next pandemic, Bill Gates enhances the importance and some examples of simulations, from the simplest to the most complex and closer to the reality, not discarding the importance that the world must give to the inequalities in the distribution of vaccines and in the treatment. At this stage, a comparison with other diseases is also presented to the reader.
The book finishes with a proposal on a plan to be ready for a future pandemic and on an analysis of which advances did the pandemic bring in terms of technology and the importance of it, as well as a forecast to the future of technology.
As in the book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, I must say I’m impressed by such an amazing book, which not only gave me a broader vision of the COVID pandemic, but also to lots of information which will certainly be useful for my future as a person and professional. This one goes directly to the list of my favorite books. Truly recommend it!
Rating 4.5/5
Read in 2023