The Covid nightmare will drag on until the end of 2022, billionaire and IT mogul Bill Gates has warned.
In an interview the Microsoft co-founder said Covid vaccines would eventually bring the world back to normal by next year.
Speaking to Polish publication Gazeta Wyborcza and broadcaster TVN24 he called the pandemic 'an incredible tragedy' but added that the end was in sight.
He said: "By the end of 2022 we should be basically completely back to normal."
Bill Gates stepped down as chairman of Microsoft Corp in 2014.
He has through his philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation committed at least $1.75 billion to the global response to the Covid 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.
In the UK a mass vaccination drive has seen 28.9 million people getting a first dose to protect against coronavirus.
As of Friday 2.7 million people had been given the second dose of one of the vaccines currently approved for use in the country.
NHS England on Wednesday said a further 69 people, who tested positive for coronavirus had died, bringing the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 85,980.
In the UK most recent figures for the entire pandemic show a total of 4,319,128 people had tested positive for the disease, with a daily rate of 6,397.
Boris Johnson's roadmap out of lockdown is slowly coming into force with fresh restrictions being lifted from Monday.
England has been in another lockdown since it was imposed back in January.
