Billionaire Bill Gates says if a vaccine for COVID-19 is found, he plans to donate $150 million in an effort to make it as accessible as possible.
“We’re trying to make sure we can end it not just in the rich countries,” Gates told Bloomberg News, Tuesday. Thus far, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged over $350 million toward Covid-19 research.
“Innovation in diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines will get us largely out of this by the end of 2021,” Gates continued. “The true end comes when between natural infection and a vaccine we have this herd immunity.”
Gates also spoke with WIRED this week, explaining that most COVID-19 testing is "completely garage." He says due to tests not getting back quickly enough, many are wasted: "The majority of all US tests are completely garbage, wasted. If you don’t care how late the date is and you reimburse at the same level, of course they’re going to take every customer. Because they are making ridiculous money, and it’s mostly rich people that are getting access to that. You have to have the reimbursement system pay a little bit extra for 24 hours, pay the normal fee for 48 hours, and pay nothing [if it isn’t done by then]. And they will fix it overnight."
[Via]