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Johns Hopkins University, whose global count of COVID-19 cases and deaths has become one of the most popular sources for information about the disease, has unveiled a new United States map that dives into the pandemic on a county level.

The U.S. map provides information about counties’ health infrastructure, population and policies and cases related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Image: Johns Hopkins University’s map tracking the COVID-19 has added county data, including snapshot infographics, like this one of Prince George’s County, for every county in the country. (Johns Hopkins University)

Sanofi and GSK, two of the biggest names in vaccine development, are joining forces on creating a coronavirus vaccine, the companies announced Tuesday.

Sanofi launched the project in February; what’s new is GSK’s contribution of an adjuvant — a substance that is added to a vaccine to enhance people’s immune responses.

Image: JOSEPH N. DISTEFANO

Current COVID-19 tests detect the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA genome in patients’ samples through RT-PCR. They are designed to identify who has the virus in their system, at the time of testing. But, testing in the United States has been inadequate on multiple levels. There are not enough tests, leaving some patients waiting in long lines outside of the hospital and others sleeping overnight in their cars, waiting to be tested. Also, the tests’ levels of sensitivity (identifying those with the disease correctly) and specificity (identifying those without the disease) have been called into question.

The world is anxiously awaiting effective treatments for Covid-19, which is ravaging most countries. Fortunately, some of the best minds in our public and private sectors are putting everything they have into developing effective vaccines, drugs, and tests that are so desperately needed. Because of the Bayh-Dole Act, which allows academic institutions and federal laboratories to effectively license their discoveries so they can make the leap from being laboratory concepts into useful products, these partnerships are proceeding at full speed. Unfortunately, some want to undo this model at the very time we need it the most.

On Thursday morning, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board) released the highly anticipated details of its massive $600 billion Main Street Lending program (Program) to support small and mid-sized businesses with up to 10,000 employees. The Program is particularly welcomed by businesses that are too large to be eligible for loans under for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

British drug giant AstraZeneca is rushing forward a big clinical trial for its blood cancer drug Calquence because it has shown early promising results in later-stage COVID-19 patients—those in intensive care units and on ventilators. Calquence and top-selling leukemia drug Imbruvica are the latest hopes in getting coronavirus patients off ventilators, where there is a 50% mortality rate.  

The COVID-19 crisis brought a shortage of ventilators that can help people battling the lung condition caused by the disease and led to a dire puzzle that leaders in the government and healthcare system are working to solve: how to acquire enough ventilators so that doctors don’t have to face the choice of refusing the machine to someone who needs it.

Image: The ventilator splitter prototype. (Photo courtesy of Johns Hopkins/Will Kirk)

While President Trump continues to promote antimalarial drugs such as hydroxychloroquine sulfate and azithromycin to treat COVID-19—“What do you have to lose?” he exclaimed during the April 4 Coronavirus Task Force Briefing—the global community of drug discovery researchers and biopharmas is developing a much broader menu of therapeutic options.

SEATTLE, April 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — After elevated venture capital (VC) investment in the past few years, deal activity maintained momentum in the first quarter of 2020 amid the impending economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which will slow activity through the rest of the year, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, the authoritative quarterly report on venture capital activity in the entrepreneurial ecosystem jointly produced by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), with support from Silicon Valley Bank and Carta.