Bill Gates says rich nations could be nearly back to normal by late 2021, if coronavirus vaccine works
- Billionaire Microsoft founder describes best-case scenario if Covid-19 shot is ready soon and properly distributed
- Western companies ahead of China and Russia on phase 3 studies for Covid-19 vaccines, Gates says
Rich countries could be back to close to normal by late 2021 if a Covid-19 vaccine works, is ready soon and distributed properly at scale, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said on Tuesday.
“By late next year you can have things going back pretty close to normal - that’s the best case,” Gates, 64, told The Wall Street Journal CEO Council.
“We still don’t know whether these vaccines will succeed,” Gates said. “Now the capacity will take time to ramp up. And so the allocation within the US, and between the US and other countries will be a very top point of contention.”
Covid-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca/Oxford University are two of the leading candidates in the race to be first to get regulatory approval in the West.
The head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday that a vaccine against Covid-19 may be ready by the end of the year.
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Gates, who made a fortune from Microsoft, has since given US$36 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which aims to tackle extreme poverty and poor healthcare.