Fans are praising Dolly Parton for her hidden involvement in helping medical professionals develop a vaccine to help fight COVID-19.
Twitter users made an astonishing discovery on Monday (November 16) when they learned about the country superstar’s low-key role in aiding research into the coronavirus vaccine.
As detailed by outlets like HITC and The Guardian, turns out, Parton has been working 9 to 5 to combat the novel disease with an insane donation. Per the latter's April 2020 report, the 74-year-old pledged a whopping $1 million to support COVID-19 vaccine research.
“My longtime friend Dr Naji Abumrad, who’s been involved in research at Vanderbilt for many years, informed me that they were making some exciting advancements towards that research of the coronavirus for a cure,” Parton wrote at the time. “I am making a donation of $1 million to Vanderbilt towards that research and to encourage people that can afford it to make donations.”
For context, Dr. Naji and Parton forged a friendship in 2014 after he treated her for a car accident. So how does this all tie together?
According to Clash Music, the country icon’s donation to helped fund “crucial research” done by medical teams that have been toiling across the past 12 months to pin down the vaccine. With Parton’s contribution, the U.S. company Moderna has since developed a vaccine via a research model based on that of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. (The vaccine is reported to be nearly 95% effective, another promising discovery concerning previous reports of Pfizer’s 90% effective vaccine.)
What’s more, a New England Journal of Medicine article detailing Moderna’s vaccine listed Parton in the Funding and Disclosures section with acknowledgment to the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund.
Needless to say, the “Jolene” star’s fans are freaking out over Parton’s part in helping to bring an end to COVID-19. See a few tweets below.
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