Last Updated on June 13, 2023 by Neelam Singh
Quick Take
Multiple social media posts claim that Bill Gates scheduled the next pandemic for 2025. We fact-checked and found the claim to be Mostly False.
The Claim
A Facebook post claims that the next pandemic will strike in 2025. These posts suggest that a disease called Severe Epidemic Enterovirus Respiratory Syndrome (SEERS) will cause a crisis similar to COVID-19. Also, that the American business magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates has orchestrated the exercise.
A screenshot of the post has been attached below:
Fact Check
Has Bill Gates planned the next pandemic for 2025?
No, there is no truth to the claim that Bill Gates has planned the next pandemic for 2025. No evidence confirms that Bill Gates has deliberately schedule or plan a pandemic.
The claim seems a conspiracy theory as there is no credible evidence. During the COVID-19 pandemic, similar allegations suggested that Bill Gates had actively planned the outbreak of COVID-19 and the development of its vaccine. THIP MEDIA has previously debunked the claim Bill Gates call for the withdrawal of the Covid-19 vaccines. Through this story, we found that these allegations were baseless and lacked any truth.
Moreover, we researched and found that the current claims regarding Severe Epidemic Enterovirus Respiratory Syndrome (SEERS) are also without foundation. The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, organized a pandemic simulation exercise called Catastrophic Contagion in Brussels, Belgium, in October 2022. SEERS is a fictional disease that was created as a part of this exercise.
In this simulated scenario, a pandemic originating from a new enterovirus would start in South America in 2025 and quickly spread, primarily affecting children and adolescents. However, individuals have taken this simulation exercise out of context and falsely asserted that Bill Gates and the WHO are actively planning the next pandemic.
These simulation exercises are mentioned as tabletop exercises on the John Hopkins website. Our research shows that tabletop or preparedness exercises are not uncommon. These fictional scenarios aid experts in preparing for potential outbreaks, testing response capabilities, and identifying areas for improvement. They do not indicate a conspiracy by authorities to intentionally cause such disasters.
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