BILLIONAIRE philanthropist Bill Gates said he doesn’t think the world will go back to normal until the end of 2022, and that’s optimistic given the current worldwide rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines.
“This is an incredible tragedy,” Gates told Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and television broadcaster TVN24 on Thursday.
But, “by the end of 2022 we should be basically completely back to normal,” the Microsoft co-founder said in regards to life following the pandemic.
Gates, who stepped down as chairman of the company in 2014, spent the last year committing at least $1.75 billion to a global response against the Covid-19 pandemic.
Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the funds would go to vaccine research, diagnostics, treatments, and of course, rollouts.
Gates’ comments come barely a month after his wife Melinda provided a similar timeline when she was asked when the pandemic would end.
She said global herd immunity won’t happen until 2022 given the lack of vaccine roll outs in various developing nations.
“So it’ll be sometime in 2022 till we have full herd immunity,” Gates said. “And boy, I think we’re all looking forward to that. There are a lot of people that are suffering, not just in the U.S. but everywhere.”
The Gates Foundation provided funds to the COVAX facility, which is looking to secure two billion vaccine doses for lower income countries by the end of 2021.
It has also received funding from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
