Poll of the Day > Bill Gates is funding new factories for 7 potential coronavirus vaccines.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-factories-7-different-vaccines-to-fight-coronavirus-2020-4

Bill Gates is plugging money into building factories for seven promising coronavirus vaccines, despite the fact it will mean wasting billions of dollars.

In a preview clip released from Friday's episode of The Daily Show, the Microsoft billionaire told host Trevor Noah that his philanthropic organization, the Gates Foundation, can mobilize faster than governments to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

"Because our foundation has such deep expertise in infectious diseases, we've thought about the epidemic, we did fund some things to be more prepared like a vaccine effort, our early money can accelerate things," said Gates.

Gates said he was picking the top seven from the available vaccine candidates and building manufacturing capacity for them.

"Even though we'll end up picking at most two of them, we're going to fund factories for all seven just so we don't waste time in serially saying 'ok which vaccine works' and thenbuilding the factory," he said.

Gates said simultaneously testing and building manufacturing capacity is essential to reaching the best-case fastest developed version of a vaccine, which Gates believes could take about 18 months. In a Washington Post op-ed published earlier this week, Gates said that some of the top candidates require unique equipment.

"It'll be a few billion dollars we'll waste on manufacturing for the constructs that don't get picked because something else is better. But a few billion in this situation we're in, where there's trillions of dollars [...] being lost economically, it is worth it," Gates said.

"We [the Gates Foundation] can get that bootstrapped and get it going, and save months because every month counts," he added.

Bill and his wife Melinda Gates have already pledged $100 million towards fighting the coronavirus, and the Gates Foundation has shipped at-home coronavirus test kits to people in Washington State.

In his Washington Post op-ed Gates also urged the government to enforce stricter lockdown measures in every state, and estimated that the US will need another 10 weeks of nationwide shutdown to effectively deal with the crisis.

Reminds me a lot of this quote from Cave Johnson,

"Just a heads up: We're gonna have a superconductor turned up full blast and pointed at you for the duration of this next test. I'll be honest, we're throwing science at the wall here to see what sticks. No idea what it'll do. Probably nothing. Best-case scenario, you might get some superpowers. Worst case, some tumors, which we'll cut out."

But good in him for doing all he can to help out, unlike some other people that sang a song.

Bill Gates is awesome.

Crazy how in the '90's he was seen as a bad guy and Steve Jobs a good guy, and how damn much those views have flipped in the last two decades.

streamofthesky posted...

Bill Gates is awesome.

Crazy how in the '90's he was seen as a bad guy and Steve Jobs a good guy, and how damn much those views have flipped in the last two decades.

I mean, he wasn't exactly a good guy then. There's no shortage of not-nice things he did on the path to becoming the then-richest man in the world. But then he retired and devoted the rest of his life to genuinely making the world a better place. Just to confuse everyone.

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But is he funding more toilet paper factories? Seriously though it's good he's willing to do that although still being at least 18 months out is kid of insane. This is an RNA virus, those might not even work by then.

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

This is an RNA virus, those might not even work by then.

How long does it take to make a factory? What about just the foundation of the factory?

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shadowsword87 posted...

How long does it take to make a factory? What about just the foundation of the factory?

shouldnt take any more than 3

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