Bill Gates – the software developer – gave an interview to the Financial Times where he rang the alarm about the possibility of a "more fatal" variant of COVID-19. In an interview with the British economic publication, the Microsoft billionaire petitioned for a pandemic response task force that would cost $1 billion.

Despite there being more than 6.2 million COVID-19 deaths, Gates warned that the pandemic could get even deadlier.

"We’re still at risk of this pandemic generating a variant that would be even more transmissive and even more fatal," Gates told the Financial Times.

"It’s not likely, I don’t want to be a voice of doom and gloom," Gates added. "But it's way above a 5% risk that this pandemic, we haven’t even seen the worst of it."