//Bill Gates is spending $150 million to try to make a coronavirus vaccine as cheap as $3

Bill Gates is spending $150 million to try to make a coronavirus vaccine as cheap as $3

Bill Gates in 2015 at a meeting of the Gavi Alliance, which develops vaccines. | Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images

Pay more attention to what Gates is doing overseas than what he’s saying about the United States.

A lot of people are paying attention to every utterance from Bill Gates, America’s billionaire-cum-conscience in the coronavirus era, about the United States’s response to the pandemic. But much less attention is paid to what Gates is actually pouring his fortune into: steeling the rest of the world for the coronavirus vaccine they will need next year.

Gates on Friday said that he and his foundation would spend $150 million to distribute vaccines, if they are found, to some of the world’s poorest people. It’s one of the largest financial commitments for coronavirus response to date from Gates, the world’s second-richest person. The Gates Foundation is handing