Bill Gates: Rich world could be close to normal by late 2021 if vaccine works

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 (6/10).

“We still don’t know whether these vaccines will succeed,” Gates, 64, told The Wall Street Journal CEO Council. “Now the capacity will take time to ramp up. And so the allocation within the U.S., and between the U.S. 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.