Gates made his first public speech after announcing his divorce: no private matters

Bill Gates

in the morning of May 20, Beijing time, it was reported that after announcing his divorce from his wife Melinda, Bill Gates made his first public speech on Wednesday local time to discuss the epidemic situation of novel coronavirus.

at the virtual global forum held by the American Chamber of Commerce, gates did not discuss any personal matters, but shared his views on covid-19 vaccine and climate change. He said: "Innovation, especially in vaccines, is faster than ever, even faster than Dr. Fauci and I expected. Within a year of discovering the virus and completing the sequencing, several companies from Pfizer and Modena have launched vaccines that have proved to be very effective."

When asked about the spread of the virus in the United States, gates believed that "we will still see a large number of cases before the United States obtains nearly 80% vaccination rate". He also said that it will take a long time for the United States to get rid of the "deficit" caused by the covid-19 epidemic

Gates said that although Americans are gradually restoring their pre epidemic lifestyle, the epidemic has greatly affected their future work style. In particular, people in less populated areas will benefit from new online work and learning opportunities. Gates wants people to discuss the future of online work and study whether it is necessary for employers to require employees to come to the office every day instead of every few days or "every four weeks"

He said, "I wrote an article 25 years ago, pointing out that digitalization will make urban centers less important. Of course, until the outbreak of the epidemic, my view is wrong." However, after that, the epidemic has changed people's views on online meetings

Gates also predicted at the Forum on Wednesday that addressing climate change will be the next major challenge for mankind. He has repeated this view many times in the past year. As early as 2015, Gates made a very famous prediction that the world was not ready for a large-scale epidemic of infectious diseases

He said: "the actual cost of preparing for the next epidemic is not very large. If you look at our investment in preventive measures in the defense budget, it will not exceed 1% of this figure." He predicted that the biggest expenditure would come from the fight against climate change

Gates said, "it will take much longer to solve climate change than to invent vaccines. For climate, we have the foundations of power generation, cement and steel, cars, planes and trucks, and all of these will be transformed into green. When we start doing this, the additional cost will be much higher." However, innovations related to green energy products will help reduce these costs

The divorce proceedings of the gates couple were officially carried out last week. A judge in Washington State approved the motion, and more lawyers will participate in the case. In addition, the gates plan to continue to participate in their public welfare organization, the bill and Melinda Gates Foundation