Gates Package — page 898

ww In early January 2020, the team we had set up to monitor outbreaks after the Ebola scare was tracking the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the one we now know as the virus that causes COVID-19.* On January 23, Trevor Mundel, who leads our global health work, sent Melinda and me an email outlining his team's thinking and requesting the first round of funding for COVID work. "Unfortunately," he wrote, "the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread with the potential to become a serious pandemic (too early to be sure but essential to act now)."† Melinda and I have a system for making decisions when a request comes to both of us, as this one did. Whoever sees it first sends it to the other and says, basically, "This looks good, do you want to go ahead and approve it?" Then the other one sends an e-mail approving the spending. We still use this system today for making big decisions related to the foundation, even though we're no longer married. * A word about terminology. SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus that causes the disease COVID-19. Technically, COVID refers to all diseases caused by coronaviruses, of which COVID-19 is one. (The 19 comes from the fact that it was discovered in 2019.) But to keep things readable, from here on out, I'm going to use "COVID" to refer to COVID-19 and "the COVID virus" to refer to SARS-CoV-2. † I've already mentioned the Gates Foundation several times in this Introduction, and I'll be mentioning it more throughout this book. This is not because I want to toot our horn, but because the foundation's health team played an important part in much of the effort to develop vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics for COVID-19. It would be hard to tell that story completely without mentioning their work.