Bill Gates

A respiratory-spread pathogen (natural or engineered) will kill more than 30 million people within less than a year.

“respiratory-spread pathogen would kill more than 30 million people in less than a year. And there is a reasonable probability of that taking place in the years ahead.”

Said on

17 February 2017 · Speech at the Munich Security Conference, 17 February 2017

Source

Bill Gates, Munich Security Conference speech (2017) · UN Speech Bank

Should come true

No date given

How sure they sounded

"there is a reasonable probability"

Categories

Health

Importance

5 of 5 · A pandemic killing over 30 million people in a year would be a civilization-scale catastrophe.

Outcome

Unresolvable

Gates said only that there is "a reasonable probability" of such a pandemic in the years ahead. That is a stated chance, not a forecast that it will happen, so the hedge rule makes it unresolvable. (COVID-19's WHO-estimated 14.9M excess deaths in 2020-21 did not reach 30M in under a year in any case.)

Evidence:

• https://speechbank.un.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/en_00037_munichsecurityconference_billgates_2017.pdf
• https://www.who.int/news/item/05-05-2022-14.9-million-excess-deaths-were-associated-with-the-COVID-19-pandemic-in-2020-and-2021