News Archive

K.J. Seung is surprised to be hiring and training new workers in Boston.

His public health nonprofit, Partners in Health, specializes in helping the poorest people in developing nations — tracking down contacts of Ebola patients in Liberia and Sierra Leone; running child health and HIV clinics in Haiti; and operating tuberculosis control programs in Peru. But now it is advertising for 500 people to help do what’s known as contact tracing to try to control Covid-19 in Massachusetts.

Image: Riders on the New York City subway last week wear personal protective equipment. JOHN MINCHILLO/AP

If you are studying to earn a bachelor’s degree in hopes of becoming a reporter, radio announcer, or computer programmer, it might be hard to find a job in the next several years because employment in these occupations are expected to shrink.

Every two years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases employment projections for the United States. These estimate how many people are likely to be employed in various jobs over the next decade.

Image: Reporters and correspondents are projected to have a 12.1% decline in employment between 2018 and 2028. Joyce N. Boghosian

The genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, was published on 11 January 2020, triggering intense global R&D activity to develop a vaccine against the disease. The scale of the humanitarian and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is driving evaluation of next-generation vaccine technology platforms through novel paradigms to accelerate development, and the first COVID-19 vaccine candidate entered human clinical testing with unprecedented rapidity on 16 March 2020.

One of the most common questions that people search about hashtag#coronavirus is how long it lives on surface. Part of the hashtag#healthcommunication and hashtag#healthliteracy is presenting complicated information in different ways. Kudos to my WebMD colleagues for this inforgraphic

This is the second post of the “Epidemic Modeling” series. We will be building up on our discussion from the first post, “Epidemic Modeling 101: Or why your CoVID-19 exponential fits are wrong”, so you might want to start reading there. You can find the notebooks I wrote to implement the models and generate the figures over at the GitHub repository I made specifically for this series:

Image: https://medium.com

First went the energy sector, second the stock-market, then the health-pandemic outbreak, soon flood and storm season return. These persistent shock waves of challenges and disasters do not allow for economies, companies, institutions nor individuals to absorb much less pause operationally, financially, nor emotionally. The “New Normal” is survival – not of the fittest but of those able to pivot their strategies and visions the fastest. Here are six economic, skill, and investment resilient strategies for the 21st Century Pivot. (And yes, you and your team have little time to conduct the typical whiteboard session, report preparation, spreadsheet development because The Pivot is now!)

CHILDREN’S NATIONAL Hospital, one of the country’s leading pediatric medical centers, is prepared to accept adult patients after expanding its admission criteria for the first time in history to bolster the D.C. region’s hospital capacity during the coronavirus crisis.

In the event that regional hospitals see a surge of adult patients, Children’s National will accept patients under 30 years old who are showing respiratory symptoms and who may or may not have tested positive for COVID-19, a spokesperson tells U.S. News. The pediatric hospital, which opened in 1870, will also admit patients in their 20s with cancer or sickle cell disease if other area hospitals become concerned about capacity during a surge.

The COVID-19 crisis has put millions of small business jobs at risk. These small businesses are experiencing a near-fatal cash crunch as they struggle to keep their doors open and jobs intact. These next few critical weeks will impact millions of jobs. 

The non-profit Virginia 30 Day Fund provides forgivable loans for Virginia-based small businesses. The forgivable loan is intended to provide immediate financial assistance (within maximum three days) to meet payroll, preserve healthcare coverage for employees and save jobs while they await recently approved federal funding. 

The Virginia 30 Day Fund is designed to be quick, easy, and free of red tape, as small business owners work to keep employees on board in the near term. All we ask in return: if you can, pay it forward. 

The coronavirus outbreak has required all manner of businesses and government agencies to turn on a dime and think creatively — and the Montgomery County Economic Development Corp. is no exception with its new effort to spur medical manufacturing.

In normal times, the EDC focuses primarily on attracting and retaining businesses in the Maryland suburb. But as a global pandemic roils the economy, many companies are simply struggling to survive, not eyeing new office space or a splashy relocation.

Image: Ben Wu, president and CEO of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, is leading an effort to create a new “manufacturing ecosystem” for medical equipment in the county. EMAN MOHAMMED

Danaher Corp. (NYSE: DHR), the massive D.C. conglomerate of industrial and commercial manufacturers, said Wednesday it has raised $753.7 million euros, or the equivalent of $825.3 million, through the issuance of new shares and will use proceeds to pay off debts, according to a Securities and Exchange commission filing.

The raise was disclosed just days after Danaher finally closed its $21.4 billion acquisition of the biopharma business of General Electric Co.’s life sciences division. Danaher announced its intent to purchase the business in February 2019, and the deal necessitated regulatory approvals in several countries and a substantial stock sale to finance the acquisition.

Image: Danaher Corp. closed its $21.4 billion acquisition of GE’s biopharma business March 31. IGOR GOLOVNIOV