I agree with the dev. Again, they made it a while ago, before the situation was serious and also to kind of cheer people up and/or cope with the situation.
You can be upset all you want, but that doesn't change the facts they said and that they kinda apologized. So if you don't like this project, leave it and the dev alone.
Thanks for your concern and I whole-heartedly agree with taking the situation seriously, but spreading hate or negativity like this here and misinformation (like the devs wanting money for it) is really uncalled for.
Stay safe and don't let your frustration and (understandable) anxiety out on people on the internet.
We'll get through this together ;)