Superduper is certainly correct about the investment by Bill Gates' Foundation. Last year, his charity foundation also gave $2m to a biotech company in California, Distributed Bio, to develop an "all in one" seasonal influenza vaccine. The company has already had success in testing with pigs and Gates' funding allows them to start human testing (in the UK) this year. The hope is that this will result in a one-off vaccination for seasonal 'flu, instead of the injections that have to take place every year. Some people think this annual injection is a 'booster' when, in fact, it's a new vaccine each year, because the virus that causes seasonal 'flu mutates easily and quickly, so a 'tweaked' vaccine has to be given every year to address the latest mutation.
However, I think Bill Gates may be beaten to a Covid-19 vaccine by the University of Pittsburgh. This post is copied from the Costa Blanca forum, with reference from the BBC Science Focus magazine:
"Fingertip-sized coronavirus vaccine ‘ready in months’
"Thought to be the first COVID-19 vaccine to be peer-reviewed by other scientists.
"Research develop a fingertip-sized patch of 400 tiny needles that deliver vaccine into the skin, where the immune reaction is strongest.
"The new vaccine can be mass produced and can sit at room temperature until needed, eliminating the need for refrigeration during transport or storage.
"Researchers in the US say they were able to act quickly because they had laid the groundwork during previous epidemics.
"A fingertip-sized patch could be a potential vaccine for coronavirus, researchers say.
"Scientists suggest that when tested in mice, it produced antibodies specific to COVID-19 [PDF] in quantities thought to be sufficient for neutralising the virus.
"The vaccine is described in a paper published in EBioMedicine, which is published by The Lancet, and is thought to be the first to be reviewed by other scientists.
"Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine say they were able to act quickly because they had laid the groundwork during earlier coronavirus epidemics."
The source document is the Lancet publication:
https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals ... 52-3964(20)30118-3.pdf
Glassfull and Elchedave: if you want to get off on trying to ridicule other members, you need to add value with your own contributions, otherwise you have no credibility and just sound ridiculous.