Bill Gates says his foundation, the world’s wealthiest charity, will give its “total attention” to the Covid-19 pandemic — even at the risk that its other public health work will suffer.

In a telephone interview from his Seattle base, Mr Gates said the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has an endowment of more than $40bn, would focus its resources on a pandemic which he fears will cost the global economy “tens of trillions of dollars.”

“You’re going to have economies with greatly reduced activity levels for years,” Mr Gates said. “So-called ‘animal spirits’ are going to be hard to find, other than government largesse. We’re definitely in the tens [of trillions], which blows the mind. If you’d asked me six months ago, I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.”