Prince Harry and Meghan to lead ‘Vax Live’ fundraising concert
Prince Harry and his wife, the former actress Meghan Markle, will serve as the campaign chairs of Global Citizen’s effort to deliver COVID-19 vaccines to medical workers in the world’s poorest countries.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will appear at “Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World,” to be taped Sunday at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and air on ABC, CBS, Fox, YouTube and iHeartMedia broadcast radio stations May 8, according to an announcement Tuesday by Global Citizen, the anti-poverty nonprofit organization.
Harry and Meghan are also leading an effort to raise money for the vaccine-sharing program COVAX, which hopes to produce $19 billion to pay for vaccine doses for medical workers in poor countries.
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will appear during the broadcast as part of the “We Can Do This” initiative to increase confidence in COVID-19 vaccines. French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Croatian Prime Andrej Minister Plenkovic will also appear during the concert, which will be hosted by Selena Gomez and headlined by Jennifer Lopez.
The U.S. will begin sharing its entire stock of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines with the world once it clears federal safety reviews, the White House said Monday, with as many as 60 million doses expected to be available for export in the coming months.
Foo Fighters, Eddie Vedder, J Balvin and H.E.R. are set to perform at the concert, with hosts Chrissy Teigen, David Letterman, Gayle King and Jimmy Kimmel and actors Ben Affleck, Nomzamo Mbatha, Olivia Munn and Sean Penn expected to appear.
As of April, 60 nations had still not yet received any COVID-19 vaccines, Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans told the Associated Press.
“Last autumn, I called for the sharing of the doses ordered by our countries, to ensure both solidarity and health security,” Macron said in a statement. “With the European vaccine-sharing mechanism via the COVAX initiative that France is inaugurating, we are in concrete solidarity in the fight against the virus, which does not care about borders.”
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