Karl-Anthony Towns announces $100,000 donation to Mayo Clinic

Timberwolves center Karl-Anthony Towns announced Sunday he is donating $100,000 to the Mayo Clinic and its efforts to help combat coronavirus.

Towns made the announcement on Instagram as the Mayo Clinic begins rolling out a test for COVID-19, an illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

"My hope is that we can fight this virus quicker and more efficiently by increasing the testing capabilities and availability and Mayo Clinic's overall COVID-19 response," Towns wrote on Instagram. "This is why I will be donating $100K to support these efforts. Thank you to the Mayo Clinic workers and all health-care workers who are working around the clock to treat us. You are our heroes.

"We're all in this together, let's protect ourselves and the community around us."

Dr. William Morice II, chairman of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic, said Towns' donation will help the organization speed up its offering of tests.

"Our team has been working around the clock for the past month to develop a test for COVID-19," Morice II said in a statement released by the Wolves. "We are blown away by Karl's gesture to help us fast-track offering testing to more patients across Minnesota and the nation."

The statement added Towns' donation will help Mayo Clinic increase its testing capacity from 200 per day to over 1,000 in coming weeks.