Bill Gates speaks at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in February in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation “will end up spending a lot more” than the $305 million it has pledged so far to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, Bill Gates tells the Wall Street Journal in a newly published interview.

Gates, who warned about the potential impact of such a disease for years, also says in the interview that he wishes he had “done more to call attention to the danger.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that Gates spoke with the 2016 U.S. presidential candidates about the risks of a pandemic, and also addressed the issue in a December 2016 meeting with then-President-elect Donald Trump.

In an interview with NBC last week, Melinda Gates described the U.S. response to the pandemic as “chaos” at the national level.

COVID-19 funding from the Seattle-based foundation is going toward therapeutics, vaccines and testing, with a particular focus on the Seattle region and unmet needs in developing countries.

In a post on Tuesday, the Microsoft co-founder discussed early results from an initiative he has personally funded, the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network, or SCAN, a disease surveillance program that has deployed home testing kits for COVID-19 in the Seattle region.

“Not only will it help improve our understanding of the outbreak in Seattle, it will also provide valuable information about the virus for other communities around the world,” he wrote. He added, “SCAN does not replace the widespread testing that is still needed in communities. But it has the potential to become an important tool for health officials seeking insights about the spread and behavior of the virus.”

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