Gates-funded vaccine may be ready in a year

London: Billionaire Bill Gates is funding production of the seven most promising ideas for a vaccine as he refocuses his philanthropic work on the deadly coronavirus. "If everything went perfectly, we'd be in scale manufacturing within a year," Gates said on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS."

"It could be as long as two years." The world's second-richest man said vaccine production will probably not start in September, as some have said.

"Dr. Fauci and I have been fairly consistent to say 18 months to create expectations that are not too high," Gates said, referring to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force.

The availability of testing for the coronavirus has been a sore spot in the U.S. for months. President Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday that the U.S. "just passed 5 million Tests, far more than any other country.

"Just looking at raw numbers misses the true picture, Gates said. "This focus on the number of tests understates the cacophony and the mistakes we've made in the testing system," Gates said.

"The wrong people are being tested, and any time you don't get results in less than 24 hours, the value of the test is dramatically reduced.

"The philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft Corp. said his best-case scenario for a phased reopening of the economy is to "pick the high-value activities like school, manufacturing and construction, and figure out a way to do those with masks and distancing."