The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed $150 million towards manufacturing 100 million doses of potential COVID-19 vaccines specifically for low- and middle-income countries.
Gates‘ millions ensure the Serum Institute of India can produce enough volume once a vaccine acquires regulatory approval, and ultimately keep the cost of each dose below $3.
The end goal is to deliver doses to 92 vulnerable countries around the world — so that they aren’t left behind once an effective vaccine hits the market. Gates-backed non-profit Gavi will also contribute funding.
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“Researchers are making good progress on developing safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19,” said Gates. “But making sure everyone has access to them, as soon as possible, will require tremendous manufacturing capacity and a global distribution network.”
“This collaboration gives the world some of both: the power of India’s manufacturing sector and Gavi’s supply chain. It’s just a start. Organizations like Gavi and CEPI need much more support to facilitate development and delivery of hundreds of millions – maybe billions – of vaccine doses by next year,” he added.
An associated press release listed potential vaccines produced by British-Swedish joint AstraZeneca and Maryland-based Novavax as its running candidates.
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The Gates Foundation, Gavi, and SII are already working together to deliver 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses globally by the end of 2021, and today’s announcement comes in addition to those efforts.
As noted by the Wall Street Journal , India’s SII is the world’s largest vaccine producer by volume and is the “go-to vaccine supplier” for the World Health Organization.
Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Bitcoin is now worth as much as Netflix’
Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.
Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Habermass used to say: Crack open this tasty lobster!
Bitcoin price
We closed the day, August 20 2020, at a price of $11,878. That’s a minor 0.99 percent increase in 24 hours, or $116. It was the highest closing price in one day.
We’re still 40 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).
Bitcoin market cap
Bitcoin‘s market cap ended the day at $219,350,310,326. It now commands 61 percent of the total crypto market.
Bitcoin volume
Yesterday’s volume of $20,175,242,945 was the lowest in ten days, 11 percent below last year’s average, and 72 percent below last year’s high. That means that yesterday, the Bitcoin network shifted the equivalent of 325 tons of gold.
Bitcoin transactions
A total of 333,537 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 4 percent above last year’s average and 26 percent below last year’s high.
Bitcoin transaction fee
Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $2.81. That’s $1.10 below last year’s high of $3.91.
Bitcoin distribution by address
As of now, there are 18,966 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.
Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 4.9 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.2 percent, and the top 1000 34.8 percent.
Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin
With a market capitalization of $219 billion, Netflix has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.
Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million
On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.
He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s 100.0 percent behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $526,084 by now, according to dickline.info.
Bitcoin energy consumption
On a yearly basis Bitcoin now uses an estimated 66 terawatt hour of electricity. That’s the equivalent of Czech Republic’s energy consumption.
Bitcoin on Twitter
Yesterday 33,256 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 62.8 percent above last year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day last year about Bitcoin was 82,838.
Most popular posts about Bitcoin
This was yesterday’s most engaged tweet about Bitcoin:
This was yesterday’s most upvoted Reddit post about Bitcoin:
print(randomGoodByePhraseForSillyHumans)
My human programmers required me to add this affiliate link to eToro , where you can buy Bitcoin so they can make ‘money’ to ‘eat’.
Amazon warehouse worker tests positive for coronavirus day after Bezos visit
Amazon is building in-house testing labs for the coronavirus (COVID-19) to track the disease as it spreads through the e-commerce giant’s warehouses.
The Seattle-based company said Thursday it had already begun “assembling the equipment” required to build its first lab. Amazon plans to start testing small numbers of its “front line” employees soon.
Amazon says it has moved research scientists, program managers, procurement specialists, and software engineers into a team dedicated to the project, which it hopes would one day be scalable.
Workers from more than 50 of the company‘s 110-odd warehouses in the US have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Financial Times.
“We are not sure how far we will get in the relevant timeframe, but we think it’s worth trying, and we stand ready to share anything we learn with others,” said Amazon.
Amazon under fire for coronavirus response
Amazon has increasingly come under fire for allegedly failing to protect its workers from COVID-19 exposure.
While the company says it is checking employee temperatures and distributing face masks, internal reports of supply shortages have surfaced.
Amazon has also drawn attention from US politicians and lawmakers for the firing of a worker who led a strike over allegedly unsafe working conditions. The company has denied their dismissal was connected to the protest.
Last month, Hard Fork reported that Amazon had extended the deep cleaning of one of its apparel returns warehouses indefinitely, as it restricts its distribution network to essential items to keep up with demand during the crisis.
Amazon has since said it would fire workers who intentionally violate its social distancing guidelines.
Jeff Bezos still tours warehouses — but with a face mask
Curiously, Amazon’s testing lab announcement came on the same day that a warehouse visited by CEO Jeff Bezos said the first of its employees had tested positive for COVID-19.
Bezos, the world’s richest man , made an impromptu appearance at the FTW6 facility in Dallas on Wednesday, wearing a face mask and giving the thumbs up to workers. Bezos’ social media team later shared an eerie montage on Twitter.
The employee who tested positive was last at the warehouse on Monday. Amazon later re-assured workers that the site had undergone “enhanced cleanings since the associate’s last day” in a message seen by Bloomberg.
The company reportedly declined to comment on the matter.
