Gates Package — page 903

And this all happens quickly. We go from raising the first red flag to making enough safe, effective vaccines to protect the population of the earth in six months. To some people reading this book, the scenario I've just described will sound overly ambitious. It's certainly a big goal, but we're already headed in that direction. In 2021, the White House announced a plan for developing a vaccine in the next epidemic within 100 days, if resources are allocated.8 And lead times are already shrinking: It took just twelve months from the time the COVID virus was analyzed genetically until the moment the first vaccines were tested and ready for use, a process that usually takes at least half a decade. And technological advances made during this pandemic will speed things up even more in the future. If we make the right choices and investments, we can do this. Each chapter in this book explains one step we need to take. Together, they add up to a plan for eliminating the pandemic as a threat to humanity and reducing the chance that anyone ever has to live through another COVID. One final thought before we dive in: COVID is a fast-moving disease. In the time since I started writing this book, several variants of the virus have appeared, most notably Omicron, and some have vanished. Some treatments that appeared very promising in early studies turned out to be less effective than we had hoped. There are questions about vaccines, including how long they provide protection, that can only be answered over time. In this book I have done my best to write what is true at the time of publication, with the understanding that some facts will inevitably change in the coming months and years. In any case, the key points of the pandemic prevention plan that I propose will be relevant just the same.