Co-founder of the Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates has intimated;that he remains hopeful the world will be “completely back to normal” by the end of 2022, as excess COVID-19 vaccines become available.
Speaking in an interview, the billionaire revealed that while he did not expect COVID-19 to be eradicated by next year,;he expected;the number of cases to be cut to “very small numbers” by the end of 2022.
“There are still some questions about how broadly the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will get;used, if that’s accepted it would be very beneficial.
“But some of the rich countries including the US and the UK,;even this summer will get to high vaccination levels and that’ll free up so that we’re getting vaccines out to the entire world;in late 2021 and through 2022 and so, we won’t have eradicated;this disease but we’ll be able to bring it down to very small numbers by the end of 2022.”
The 65-year-old added that the high rollout rate of vaccines in richer countries;including the US and UK will also help free up doses to share with developing countries.
“Well, over the balance of the year, the US, the UK and others will be able to make sure;that the vaccines are now going to the developing countries.
“Because many of the vaccines worked… we will be able to supply others…;and so the places where you want to get everyone over-60 vaccinated, like South Africa, Brazil,;that will become a priority just in the next three or four months.”
Rich countries hoarding vaccines ‘not completely surprising’
Bill Gates also averred the fact that rich countries had prioritized themselves for vaccines was “not completely surprising”.
“Because the fact of getting elderly people vaccinated;in the rich countries, which actually had the pandemic worse than most of the developing countries,;that was a good thing.
“The fact that now we’re vaccinating 30-year-olds in the UK and the US and we don’t have all the 60-year-olds in Brazil and South Africa vaccinated, that’s not fair. But within three or four months the vaccine allocation will be getting to all the countries that have the very severe epidemic.”
He also insisted that preparing for future pandemics was “a top priority” and expressed concern it would be forgotten about as it was in the wake of the Ebola outbreak.
“Because we didn’t practice, it’s clear that in understanding variants and understanding how quickly you can do the regulatory stuff, when this comes up again, we could be a lot smarter.
“People didn’t invest enough in this risk… so I hope we keep in mind that we do need to invest and be ready for the next pandemic. I’m worried that we’ll forget about it. The Ebola epidemic was the time I thought people would be interested and I was out talking about what we needed to do.”
However, Mr. Gates added that due to the devastating global economic and human cost of the pandemic, he believed “that this generation will remember this”.
“I do think because trillions were lost, that this generation will remember this.”
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