COVID-19 Global Herd Immunity By 2022? Melinda Gates Thinks It's Possible

Melinda Gates believes global herd immunity from COVID-19 won't be achieved until sometime in 2022.

The billionaire philanthropist and former tech executive told CNBC that it is likely that COVID-19 vaccines, especially single-shot vaccines like Johnson & Johnson's, likely won't begin arriving in developing countries until the end of this year.

However, Gates, who has donated millions to fund the coronavirus vaccine and treatment research, said she is looking forward to the world achieving herd immunity from the virus that brought nations to their knees over the past year.

“So it’ll be sometime in 2022 till we have full herd immunity,” she said in an interview that aired Monday on “Closing Bell.” “And boy, I think we’re all looking forward to that. There are a lot of people that are suffering, not just in the U.S. but everywhere.”

Bill Gates, who is the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, also noted in a CNBC interview last month that the only way to bring the pandemic to an end would be to provide vaccines to developing countries.

According to medical experts, it would take months or possibly even years before countries can vaccinate enough people to eventually achieve herd immunity. Health professionals have also said that the longer it takes for nations to vaccinate their population, the higher the risk of the virus mutating into potentially new variants as it continues to spread to new hosts.

Last year, U.K.’s chief scientific advisor Patrick Vallance said that the coronavirus is unlikely to be completely eradicated by any vaccine and will likely become as “endemic” as the annual flu virus.

“We can’t be certain, but I think it’s unlikely we will end up with a truly sterilizing vaccine, (that is) something that completely stops infection, and it’s likely this disease will circulate and be endemic, that’s my best assessment,” Vallance told the National Security Strategy Committee in London back in October 2020, before any vaccine had been approved for emergency use.

“Clearly as management becomes better, as you get vaccination which would decrease the chance of infection and the severity of disease ... this then starts to look more like annual flu than anything else, and that may be the direction we end up going,” he added.

In the U.S., counties and states began administering COVID-19 vaccines in December. However, Adam Macneil, an epidemiologist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in late February that the nation is still nowhere close to achieving herd immunity, CNBC reported.

As of Monday, roughly 60 million Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 31.5 million already fully vaccinated, per a New York Times database.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor, said the goal is to vaccinate between 70% and 85% of the population to achieve herd immunity and suppress the pandemic. This is around 232 million to 281 million Americans.