Dolly Parton delivers in search for coronavirus vaccine

Dolly Parton, the queen of country music, has been widely praised for spurring the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Dolly Parton donated $US1m to a research centre – money that was used in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Picture: Getty Images

After the first announcement of an apparently effective corona­virus vaccine by Pfizer, President Donald Trump grumbled that he had not been given enough credit for the achievement.

Pfizer was never involved in the Trump administration’s vaccine production initiative. Yet when a rival company that did take US government funds announced this week that tests had shown its vaccine to be 95 per cent effective, Mr Trump was again overlooked.

Dolly Parton, the queen of country music, was widely praised for spurring development of the Moderna vaccine by giving $US1m to fund research in April.

A paper in the New England Journal of Medicine says the research was supported by “the Dolly Parton Covid-19 Research Fund” at the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre.

The news prompted tributes from doctors, scientists and music critics. Lyz Lenz, a writer, tweeted: “Shakespeare may have written King Lear during the plague but Dolly Parton funded a COVID vaccine, dropped a Christmas album and a Christmas special.”

Gretchen McCulloch swiftly rewrote Parton’s hit Jolene, with the chorus: “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vacciiiiiiiiine, I’m begging you, please go in my arm.”

Parton told NBC: “I’m just happy that anything I do can help somebody else, and when I donated the money to the COVID fund, I just wanted it to do good, and evidently it is. Let’s just hope we find a cure real soon.”

In April she said her “friend, doctor Naji Abumrad”, a surgical professor at the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville, had told her “they are making some exciting advancements towards research of the coronavirus for a cure”.

The Times