Gates’ Foundation has been a major funder and a leader in the response to global epidemics for years, most notably Ebola. Now they are working on COVID-19. What is less well known is the fact that Bill Gates did a TED talk warning of the danger of just the sort of pandemic we now face. Here are both talks.

And his warning of March 2015 …

Our government did not see this disaster coming and defunded and downsized the departments that were responsible for ensuring preparedness. These talks demonstrate that those responsible could have known and should have been ready. Failure is always an orphan.

Trevor Noah interviews Gates on fighting the pandemic.