A scientist behind one of the vaccines in clinical trials believes that normal life will return by next winter.
Professor Ugur Sahin, chief executive of BioNTech, said that the vaccine effects will begin to be felt by next summer and by the winter Ireland and the world will be close to a return to normal life.
Prof Sahin told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: "If everything continues to go well, we will start to deliver the vaccine end of this year, beginning next year.
"Our goal is to deliver more than 300 million of vaccine doses until April next year, which could allow us to already start to make an impact.
“The bigger impact will happen until summer, the summer will help us anyway because the infection rate will go down in summer.
"What is absolutely essential is that we get a high vaccination rate before autumn/winter next year, so that means all the immunisation, vaccination approaches must be accomplished before next autumn.
"I’m confident that this will happen, because a number of vaccine companies have been asked to increase the supply, and so that we could have a normal winter next year."
Prof Sahin is one of the people behind the Pfizer vaccine in coordination with BioNtech which saw jabs were 90% effective in interim trials.
The vaccine is expected to be rolled out later this year in some parts of the world.
