Bill Gates admitted that “a few” billion dollars could go to “waste” in his fight to find a vaccine for the coronavirus, but “every month counts.”
The comments came during the billionaire, Microsoft co-founder’s appearance via video on the “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” when the 64-year-old shared that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation planned to help fund work being done at seven factories working on potential vaccines against COVID-19. The comments were noted by People magazine in a piece published Monday. (RELATED: REPORT: Coachella Potentially Rescheduled To October Due To Coronavirus Fears)
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Gates explained that “of all the vaccine constructs, even though we will end up picking two of them at most,” funding factories for all seven is worth it so we “don’t waste time.”(RELATED: Here’s A List Of How Every Country In The World Is Responding To Coronavirus)
“But a few billion in this situation we’re in where there’s trillions of dollars being lost economically, it is worth it,” the billionaire said. “… because every month counts.”
It all comes after the foundation revealed last month that, it would contribute $125 million to finding potential COVID-19 treatments, according to a press release.
“Viruses like COVID-19 spread rapidly, but the development of vaccines and treatments to stop them moves slowly,” Mark Suzman, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“If we want to make the world safe from outbreaks like COVID-19, particularly for those most vulnerable, then we need to find a way to make research and development move faster,” he added. “That requires governments, private enterprise, and philanthropic organizations to act quickly to fund R&D.”
According to the latest data from John Hopkins, there have been a total of 368,449 cases in the United States of the coronavirus, with 10,993 deaths.