Experts predict on US radio about the end of Covid-19 pandemic

Much of Auckland has been shut down while the rest of New Zealand is under Level 2 restrictions. Across the Tasman Sea, Queensland and Western Australia are in similar situations. Sydney has been in lockdown since late June, while Melbourne is now the world's longest-running city lockdown.

Meanwhile, in Norway, celebrations were held across the country as more than a year of strict restrictions were lifted. "It has been 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime. Now it is time to return to normal life," the government announced.

Norway's decision comes after Denmark lifted all restrictions related toCovid-19in early September. Britain is also enjoying its newfound freedom, with schools and workplaces reopening, and tourists flocking to London.

Many other countries with high vaccination rates are considering fully reopening, promising a return to the vibrant life of 2019 before the pandemic appeared.

Within a year

That vision will come true sooner or later.

Albert Bourla, Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, appeared on ABC's "This Week" news program on September 26. He talked about how the world will live with Covid-19, and said that normal life could return "within a year."

Still, Albert Bourla warned: "I don't think that means variants won't continue to emerge. And I don't think we can continue to live without vaccination."

Rapid global vaccination campaigns are key to helping people live with Covid-19, he said, and it is essential that vaccines last longer and protect against current and future strains of the virus.

"To me, the most likely scenario is that we will continue to see new variants emerge, and we will have a vaccine that will be effective for at least a year," Bourla said.

Sharing the same view as Mr. Bourla, the CEO of Moderna Pharmaceuticals Stephane Bancel said that the pandemic could end "within a year from today." In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Mr. Bancel argued that ramping up vaccine production would ensure enough doses for the world by mid-2022.

Vaccinating children will help bring life back to normal, he added.

Get vaccinated and enjoy life, he stressed, otherwise there is "the risk of infection and possibly ending up in hospital".

Why do we need booster shots?

For the bosses of Pfizer and Moderna, the most likely scenario is that a Covid-19 vaccine will be needed annually, much like the seasonal flu vaccine is routinely administered.

US officials recently approved additional doses of the Pfizer vaccine for the elderly and high-risk groups, such as health care workers.

Huge task ahead

To date, 44.4% of the world's population has received at least one dose of vaccine. However, the gap between rich and poor countries remains large. CHigh- and upper-middle-income countries have a rate of around 60%, while low-income countries have a rate of 30%, or even just a few percent in some places, according to Our World in Data.

Vaccination rates in the world’s poorest countries are dangerously low. In the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti, for example, less than 1% of the population has been vaccinated against Covid-19, according to Reuters.

At a White House-hosted Covid-19 summit last week, global leaders pledged to work together toward the World Health Organization's (WHO) goal of vaccinating 70% of the world's population by September next year.

"Many countries and stakeholders have announced their intentions to provide vaccine and financial support to vaccination programs to ensure vaccines are administered worldwide," the White House stressed in a statement.

The US has pledged to buy an additional 500 million doses of vaccines to donate to countries that need them, bringing its total vaccine donations to 1.1 billion. "To defeat the pandemic here, we need to defeat it everywhere," President Joe Biden said. "This is an all-hands-on-deck crisis."