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This report provides a road map for navigating through the current COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. It outlines specific directions for adapting our public-health strategy as we limit the epidemic spread of COVID-19 and are able to transition to new tools and approaches to prevent further spread of the disease. We outline the steps that can be taken as epidemic transmission is brought under control in different regions. These steps can transition to tools and approaches that target those with infection rather than mitigation tactics that target entire populations in regions where transmission is widespread and not controlled. We suggest measurable milestones for identifying when we can make these transitions and start reopening America for businesses and families.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., March 30, 2020 – Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) (the Company) today announced the selection of a lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate from constructs it has been working on since January 2020; the significant expansion of the existing partnership between the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA); and the rapid scaling of the Company’s manufacturing capacity with the goal of providing global supply of more than one billion doses of a vaccine. The Company expects to initiate human clinical studies of its lead vaccine candidate at the latest by September 2020 and anticipates the first batches of a COVID-19 vaccine could be available for emergency use authorization in early 2021, a substantially accelerated timeframe in comparison to the typical vaccine development process.

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Dr. Thomas Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, warned that the U.S. is “still at the beginning” of the coronavirus outbreak, and outlined five conditions that must be met before the country should consider relaxing social distancing practices.

Thirty thousand base pairs make up the (relatively tiny) SARS-CoV-2 genome. A singular genome holds limited information. But, by comparing multiple genomes from different patients, animals, places, or time periods, the DNA’s information can be unlocked. From where the virus originated to how it spilled over from animals into humans, how quickly it mutates, and how those changes affect infections—genome comparisons may provide the answers.

Image: This illustration, created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reveals ultrastructural morphology exhibited by coronaviruses. A novel coronavirus, named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China in 2019. The illness caused by this virus has been named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). (CDC/Alissa Eckert, MS)

Bloomberg Philanthropies and the state of Maryland will spend $4 million to back a Johns Hopkins University study into whether the blood of recovered COVID-19 patients can be used to treat patients suffering from the disease.

The effort will also include researchers from nearly two dozen institutions, including the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Arturo Casadevall, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, will lead the study.

Sometimes, business success requires someone who has your back.

Now in its sixth year, 757 Angels continues to support start-ups in Hampton Roads and elsewhere by investing capital in them.

The Angel Capital Association, a national industry alliance based in Kansas, named 757 Angels as one of the nation’s top 10 angel groups, by total dollars invested, for 2018.

And last year, 757 Angels saw continued growth, and its biggest year, as the group invested $15 million in 11 companies.

Image: Monique Adams, executive director of 757 Angels, gives a talk.(Courtesy of 757 Angels)

Medical biotech company Emergent BioSolutions is one of the many health industry players turning its efforts towards addressing the current global coronavirus pandemic. Their work includes a two-pronged effort to pursue plasma-based treatments that could help lessen the impact of COVID-19 on health care systems, with a fast-tracked development timeline that could see human clinical trials start as soon as this summer.

The study of the COVID-19 pandemic often involves sequencing the SARS-CoV-2 virus using Illumina, Nanopore, IonTorrent and Sanger technologies alone or in combination. Depending on the sampling and library preparation method used, this can involve metatranscriptomic data of varying viral content.

In this webinar tutorial, the following topics will be discussed:

• Best practices for bioinformatic analyses using the versatile QIAGEN CLC Genomics Workbench
• QC, adapter trimming and strategies for host read depletion and viral content enrichment
• Simple pipelines for assembly and strain identification
• A demonstration of read mapping, variant calling and consensus sequence extraction, which are necessary steps for obtaining high-quality genomic sequences for phylogenetic analysis and publication

QIAGEN N.V. QGEN announced that it started shipping its new QIAstat-Dx Respiratory SARS-CoV-2 Panel test (which is to be sold as an in-vitro diagnostic or IVD) in the United States to help diagnose coronavirus-infected patients. The announcement came after a new policy of an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) was declared by the FDA early this month. Notably, the company will submit the related EUA to the FDA this week.

Image: https://www.nasdaq.com