US billionaire and software developer Bill Gates has warned that the coronavirus epidemic "will be back in big numbers" in October-November when temperatures in the United States turn lower.
Speaking at a CNN Global Town Hall on Thursday night, Gates warned that the US is still "very much in the thick of things" when it comes to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
He said he believes that we are heading for another big round of infections in the autumn.
"Better treatment is reducing the deaths, but, particularly as you get into October and November, this thing will be back in big numbers, if we dont restrain our behavior more than it looks like we are right at the moment," Gates warned.
Gates has expressed his disappointment over the Trump administrations lack of in containing the spread of the virus.
"We do need to think about the world here and, you know, that Im still pretty disappointed, and without US leadership, its been hard to pull together, you know, a response," he said.
"The only good news in this is that the death rate has gone down somewhat, as were learning how to treat people better, were less overloaded," he added, but then stressed. "But the global picture and the US picture are both more bleak than I would have expected."
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charitable foundation that he and his wife, Melinda Gates, established in 2000, has committed $100 million to fighting the coronavirus.
This is not the first time that the American billionaire has warned about ramifications of the global outbreak.
He has said earlier that the coronavirus pandemic will cause pain "for years to come."
"The COVID-19 pandemic - the first modern pandemic - will define this era," he wrote in April. "No one who lives through Pandemic I will ever forget it. And it is impossible to overstate the pain that people are feeling now and will continue to feel for years to come."
The United States on Thursday confirmed a daily record of nearly 40,000 new coronavirus cases, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University (JHU).
Johns Hopkins public database reported Americas largest single-day increase in new COVID-19 cases on Thursday.
The previous one-day record occurred on April 24, when about 36,000 were confirmed to have contracted the virus.
The highest numbers were in Florida, Texas and California states. The surge in infections has prompted the three states to halt their reopening plans.
Other American states have also reported an increase in the number of new infections over the past week.
The US is the worlds hardest-hit country by the pandemic. It has so far confirmed over 2.4 million cases.
According to Johns Hopkins, 2.4 million Americans have contracted the virus, and more than 124,000 have died after contracting it.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), however, has said the real number could be ten times higher than the reported figure.
According to the latest estimate by CDC officials, at least 20 million people in the US may already have been infected with COVID-19.
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/18908
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