Warren Buffett predicts another pandemic worse than COVID-19, says 'we are not prepared'

American billionaire Warren Buffett recently said that he believes that another pandemic was on the horizon, which could be worse than that of COVID-19. In an interview with CNBC’s Buffett & Munger: A Wealth of Wisdom’ show, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway said that even though these situations are manageable, the world as a whole is not prepared for mass-scale prevention. He was quoted as saying, “there will be another pandemic. We know that there is a nuclear, chemical, biological and now cyber threat. Each of them has dire possibilities…It doesn’t seem like it’s something that society is fully prepared to deal with”. 

Buffett, who ranks ninth in the Forbes billionaire ranking, further went on to say that the main lesson coronavirus has taught him is that the world is not prepared to deal with emergency situations. He said that society has a hard time preparing for remote situations, which are bound to happen sooner or later. He also voiced his views on the uneven impact of the pandemic and the lockdown on businesses as smaller businesses took the brunt of the blow. 

The billionaire affirmed that the economic consequences of COVID-19 are falling disproportionately. He noted that many hundreds of thousands or millions of small businesses have been hurt terribly. Buffett said that the economic impact has been this “extremely uneven” and added that most of the big companies have “overwhelmingly done fine”. He noted that the pandemic "is not over," but that most companies are doing well. 

Buffett's financial uncertainty 

Further, Buffett referred to the automotive companies and said that the virus was "a fabulous success that they did not anticipate". He recalled that the sector has registered record profits thanks to the reopening and reduction in supply derived from chip storage. It is worth noting that according to a report by CNBC, with the shutdown of factories and global shortages of semiconductors, the automakers and dealers saw a tremendous surge. 

Buffett even made it clear that he also faced financial uncertainty of his own, as no one was sure what was going to happen to his airlines BNSF Railway and NetJets in terms of demand. However, despite all the uncertainty and chaos, Buffett was determined to shift the focus to the industry and helping other companies stay afloat so that they did not have to rely on the government for aid. "We remind them that they had a rich brother," said the millionaire.

(Image: AP/Pixabay)