"By the end of 2022 we should be basically completely back to normal," Gates told Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and television broadcaster TVN24. He added that coronavirus vaccines will help end the "incredible tragedy" that is the pandemic.
Since first being detected in late 2019, Covid-19 has affected more than 125 million people, claiming 2.7 million lives. In 2015, Gates warned that it would be a "highly infectious virus rather than a war" that would cause the deaths of millions of people in the next few decades.
Gates, who stepped down as chairman of Microsoft Corp in 2014, has through his philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation committed at least 1.75 billion dollars to the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic. That includes support for some makers of vaccines, diagnostics and potential treatments.
The COVAX facility, backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), aims to secure 2 billion vaccine doses for lower-income countries by the end of 2021.