Dolly Parton donated $1,000,000 to successful Moderna Covid-19 vaccine trial

Dolly Parton has gifted the world many, many things in her time, but it turns out that the country music legend is partially responsible for the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine trial's success.

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the singer was shown some of the research the university was doing on antibodies to combat Covid-19, and Parton donated $1 million to the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center.

The Moderna vaccine has reported a 94.5% protection rate, following news that Pfizer will be rolling out their first Covid-19 vaccine in 2021.

"We are going to have a vaccine that can stop Covid-19," Moderna President Stephen Hoge said.

Interim data from Moderna suggests its jab is highly effective in preventing people getting ill and also works across all age groups, including the elderly.

Together with Pfizer's vaccine, also shown to be more than 90% effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the US could have two vaccines authorised for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available by the end of 2020.

The Deputy Chief Medical Officer has said news about Covid-19 vaccines is promising, but cautioned that "we will have to overcome vaccine hesitancy".

After it was discovered that Parton had played a role in the vaccine’s success, her name began trending on Twitter on Tuesday.

Fact-checking this was worth it just to see @DollyParton in the acknowledgments of a @NEJM article. And I thought I couldn’t love her more. https://t.co/S3njHEFcGT pic.twitter.com/WcrFIrHp67

— Dr. Meade Krosby (@MeadeKrosby) November 17, 2020