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In a recent episode of The Ellen Show, tech billionaire and humanitarian Bill Gates discussed with host Ellen DeGeneres the importance of developing a cure and a vaccine for the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), in order for the whole world to return to a 'normal life' as soon as possible.

And in one part of the interview, Ellen's wife Portia de Rossi asked Bill Gates if it's true that medical frontliners have higher risk of dying from COVID-19 because they are exposed to bigger 'doses' of the virus.

Bill Gates answers why medical frontliners have a higher risk of dying from COVID-19 | Source: The Ellen Show (YouTube)

Bill then answered the question based on his knowledge and experience, as their foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has also been involved in research and development efforts to eradicate polio and find a cure for HIV for years.

“The initial exposure and the inoculum will make a difference. Because it's a race between the virus duplicating itself and the immune system saying 'OK, what is this? Is this something I should go and attack?' And so like when a health care worker goes to intubate somebody they can get quite an exposure.

“But yeah, the exposure level, we see this with measles and other respiratory diseases that the degree of exposure makes a big difference. Which is why some young healthy doctors stunningly got sick very quickly and unfortunately died.”

He then shared what their foundation has done to minimize the exposure of medical frontliners when conducting COVID-19 tests.

“One of the things our Foundation has done - it used to be when you would take a test, you had to have a health care worker do that and stick a swab up to the back of your throat. And that would expose the health care worker. They'd have to wear protective equipment.

“Now what we've shown is that if you just give the patient the swab and have them just put it up at the tip of their nose, that the accuracy is every bit as good as having that health care worker.”

Bill also said that they've only recently convinced the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to approve the use of home test kits or self-swab.

For more news on the Coronavirus Disease pandemic, go to GMA Network's COVID-19 page.

And for updates regarding the enhanced community quarantine, go to the ECQ page.

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