The coronavirus pandemic is getting the total attention of the Gates Foundation

Microsoft founder Bill Gates expects his foundation to work “almost entirely” on the coronavirus pandemic in the near future, the Financial Times reported. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a $40 billion endowment, and has worked on HIV and malaria and polio eradication. But Gates said the foundation has shifted most of that focus to work on the coronavirus.

“This has the foundation’s total attention,” Gates told the FT. “Even our non-health related work, like higher education and K-12 [schools], is completely switched around to look at how you facilitate online learning.”

The Gates Foundation already has pledged a total of $250 million “to support development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines; help strengthen African and...

Continue reading…