Amidst growing concerns surrounding the coronavirus, numerous high-profile figures are doing what they can to help. According to Yahoo, Bill Gates is doing his part by donating a large sum of money towards developing a possible coronavirus vaccine. The publication reported that Gates is spending billions in order to aid the production of several possible coronavirus vaccines, with his donation being used to help “save months” in terms of their production timelines. The Microsoft founder is reportedly spending billions towards seven specific, possible vaccines that are in production that could protect those from developing coronavirus and COVID-19, the illness that it causes.
Gates opened up about these philanthropic efforts during an appearance on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, which is currently being produced and distributed remotely. During his time on the program, Gates told host Trevor Noah that he was funding several efforts for a very specific and important reason. He said that these donations could help “save months” when it comes to the production timeline “because every month counts.” It should also be noted that these donations will be made through his philanthropic organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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“Our early money can accelerate things,” he explained on the talk show. “Of all the vaccine constructs, the seven most promising of those, even though we’ll end up picking at most two of them, we’re going to fund factories for all seven, and just so that we don’t waste time in serially saying, ‘Okay, which vaccine works?’ And then building the factory.”
Gates has also addressed this pandemic on Fox News on Sunday. During his appearance on the news outlet, Gates remarked that this is a “nightmare scenario” because of the high-rate of transmission for the coronavirus. At the time, he also voiced his opinions regarding social distancing efforts in the country and how he hoped that they would help improve the grave situation currently going on. He noted that if Americans do keep these efforts up, the situation could improve so that the overall death toll in the United States could fall short of the White House’s 100,000 to 240,000 estimate. Gates went on to note once more that he was donating a large amount of money towards the production of possible coronavirus vaccines.
“The ultimate solution, the only thing that really lets us go back completely to normal and feel good about sitting in a stadium with lots of other people, is to create a vaccine,” Gates said. “And not just take care of country, but take that vaccine out to the global population so that we have vast immunity and this thing, no matter what, isn’t going to spread in large numbers.”
