Virus World

This article updates our perspectives on when the coronavirus pandemic will end to reflect the latest information on vaccine rollout, variants of concern, and disease progression. In the United Kingdom and the United States, we see progress toward a transition to normalcy during the second quarter of 2021. The new wave of cases in the European Union means that a similar transition is likely to come later there, in the late second or third quarter. Improved vaccine availability makes herd immunity most likely in the third quarter for the United Kingdom and the United States and in the fourth quarter for the European Union, but risks threaten that timeline. The timeline in other countries will depend on seven crucial variables. And when herd immunity is reached, the risks will not vanish; herd immunity may prove temporary or be limited to regions in a country....

Bill Gates is feeling optimistic that, with all the work being done to develop COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, there is an end to the pandemic in sight. Unfortunately, that end is still at least a year away, he told Wired's Steven Levy. "The innovation pipeline on scaling up diagnostics, on new therapeutics, on vaccines is actually quite impressive. And that makes me feel like, for the rich world, we should largely be able to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end of 2022," Gates said. Gates says that he fears that in nations like Russia and China, the pressure to have a vaccine is so high that regulators may be allowing shots to be given to humans before the vaccines are known to be safe and effective. But the US FDA is not allowing such short-cuts, he said.

"We probably need three or four months — no matter what — of phase 3 data, just to look for side effects," Gates said. "The FDA, to their credit, at least so far, is sticking to requiring proof of efficacy." Last month, Gates told Business Insider's Hilary Brueck that he's confident that scientists will develop a vaccine that's "very effective and very safe" in part because there are so many vaccines currently in development: more than 160 worldwide. Two of the four speediest trials that are testing vaccines in humans right now are US-based, too: Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. Gates also told Brueck if the best vaccines are not shared worldwide, that COVID-19 will "just keep coming back." In the meantime, Gates predicts we're in for a rough fall and winter with the virus, even though this virus does not appear to be seasonal.  "The fall could be tough," he told Brueck. "We'll be indoors more. It will be colder. We know those are things that push the disease up."