Billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist, Bill Gates, on Friday said, a vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic may come in about 18-24 months’ time.
Appearing on NBC Today Show, Gates said that there is evidence that this timeline may come to pass, even though a vaccine takes over five years to develop.
Bill Gates had earlier been warning about a possible flu-like virus pandemic since 2015.
“The best scientists are working hard on this,” Gates said.
“In fact, in the last few weeks, I’ve seen signs that we may get to the optimistic side of that time projection” for a vaccine.
The Microsoft founder called the coronavirus crisis “a nightmare,” saying that “the human-to-human respiratory spread is the scariest scenario.”
“I wish it had come, you know, five or 10 years later, then governments might have done the preparation to move quickly as a few governments did,” Gates said.
“Many countries decided that at the national level, they would orchestrate the testing” for the virus, he said.
“That hasn’t happened in the United States. It might not happen. But, you know, the access to tests is just, you know, chaotic.”
When asked what he thinks about moves toward reopening by some states such as Georgia, Gates said he is “afraid we’ll have some people and some states that move too quickly and have to back off.”
But, he said, “it’s going to be a while before things go back to normal.”
“I wish I could say that we’re halfway through. But I don’t think so.”
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been involved in battling some perennial diseases like Polio and Malaria in the world, especially in Africa.
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