Thanks for the references. So, I read The Next Epidemic — Lessons from Ebola by Bill Gates NEJM April 2015. Make sure to read appendix that is a little more detailed. It is not very insightful in terms of pandemic prediction: he is mostly referring to ebola and HIV and Africa, while mentioning that airborne diseases are most dangerous. He is not even mentioning SARS or propensity of China to send new viruses to the world. Maybe PC police didn’t let him. At the same time, his analysis of potential response is very good. He identifies weak spots in our defense systems: lack of surveillance, slow 3day pcr testing, unpreparedness to manufacture new vaccines in several months, and more. I suggest reading this short article for more details.
In retrospect, if some of his recommendations were acted upon, a lot of lives would have been saved from COVID. Really dispiriting that even an influential guy like that was not able to move the government to act. Maybe he should have locked them out of windows until they do.