The pandemic is taking a heavy toll around around the world as we’ve seen in India in the last several days. One power couple is helping out in a significant way. Jen Rubio, the CEO of Away, and her husband, Stewart Butterfield, the founder of Slack, are helping make COVID-19 vaccines accessible to everyone.
Amid the biggest vaccination campaign in history, COVID-19 has exposed a worldwide health care weakness. India is the latest alarming example. Reporting more than 300,000 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours for the sixth day in a row. And, as CDC officials can attest, threat anywhere is a threat everywhere. This virus does not respect borders. We’ve seen that in the pandemic.
Statistics show that there have been more than 3 million deaths from the virus worldwide. With more than 1 billion vaccine doses administered around the world there’s small signs of progress, especially in the U.S. and many countries in Europe and the U.K., but much still to be done with just 3% of the global population fully vaccinated. It’s important that we look at the COVID-19 response in the big picture as a global concern and that those most vulnerable will get protected anywhere they live.
And that’s where Jen Rubio and Stewart Butterfield have stepped up to literally put their money where their mouths are, donating their personal millions towards this effort. “So obviously the covid-19 pandemic is a catastrophic human crisis and we’re not even close to getting through it. So while there’s a lot of optimism around U.S. Vaccinations such a small percent of the global population has been vaccinated and no way to ear rad indicate it so today Stewart and I are announcing a $25 million donation to UNICEF to accelerate the rate of global vaccination in 92 low and middle income countries,” says Rubio.
Adds, Butterfield, “This is a global problem and it requires a global solution so I’m not sure if people realize what’s at stake. Things are bad and could get significantly worse. What we’ve seen in India can happen elsewhere in the world. UNICEF is one of the few organizations in the world that has the kind of reach. They already deliver 2 billion immunizations and vaccines per year and vaccinate 45% of the world’s children and have the distribution network and the organization that’s approving, purchasing and distributing these vaccines. UNICEF’s job is to turn vaccines into vaccination, get shots in arms and they’re the best in the world. To actually get it done.”
Now that Rubio and Butterfield have stepped up in a big way, they are putting the challenge out to other Big Tech leaders to follow their example. “What I’m doing is calling on tech leaders and leaders in industries that heavily benefited during the last year, the economic impact has been unequal and devastating to some and some companies have grown significantly over this period. I think from Silicon Valley, from the tech industry we should be able to raise 100 million of the $565 million shortfall unicef faces. Anyone who can donate should. It’ll make a huge impact,” says Butterfield.
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