Ten days ago the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners announced a massive effort to scale up development and production of COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests and ensure that they're equitably distributed, and today countries and groups pledged $8 billion to make the plan—called the ACT Accelerator—a reality.The global COVID-19 number is at 3,571,615 from 187 countries, and at least 250,134 people have died from their infections, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard.Pledges for accelerator almost hit goalThe European Commission (EC), which hosted the pledging event, said that today's pledging session, which netted €7.4 billion (equivalent to $8 billion), almost reached the initial target of €7.5 billion and that