Getty Images for Breakthrough PrizeOn Wednesday morning, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — the philanthropic and investing arm of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan — announced it would give $13.6 million to fund a nine-month research project to better understand the prevalence of coronavirus in the Bay Area. “To reopen society in the Bay Area and keep healthcare workers safe, we need to first understand the epidemiology of this disease,” Priscilla Chan, cofounder of CZI, said in a press release. The first will be a sample survey of a representative population in the Bay Area with the goal of figuring out how to keep transmission rates low as California re-opens without a vaccine. The second study will focus on Bay Area healthcare workers to understand whether COVID-19 antibodies will protect individuals from reinfection, and if so, for how long. These gifts include $25 million to Bill Gates’ COVID-19 Accelerator and $4 million to expand UCSF’s labs and free COVID testing.

Source: Forbes April 29, 2020 18:45 UTC