BALTIMORE (WJZ) When President Donald Trump announced Operation Warp Speed in mid-May, it was defined as a national objective to finish developing and then to manufacture and distribute a proven coronavirus vaccine as fast as possible.
Part of the operation is now taking place in Baltimore, at one facility belonging to Emergent BioSolutions.
Its one of ten facilities throughout the country, but its facility in Baltimore is becoming one of the most productive in the nation.
Thats because this facility was created to manufacture vaccines.
Emergent announced this week it has partnered with the biopharmaceutical company Astra Zeneca to make that companys coronavirus vaccine.
Syed Husain, Emergents senior vice president, said within the next few weeks, its Baltimore facility will be producing Astra Zenecas vaccine for clinical trials that could lead to FDA approval.
They have the vaccine, we have factories and people that are ready to step up and do our part, he said.
This is the fourth company, including Johnson & Johnson, whose vaccine will be made at Emergents Baltimore location.
Husan said this will pave the way for multiple potential vaccines to be solutions,
His employees are working 24/7 at warp speed inching closer to a cure for COVID-19.
For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Departments website or call 211. You can find all of WJZs coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore scientists testing a COVID-19 vaccine from U.S. firm Arcturus Therapeutics (ARCT.O) plan to start human trials in August after promising initial responses in mice.
FILE PHOTO: A researcher works in a lab at the Duke-NUS Medical School, which is developing a way to track genetic changes that speed testing of vaccines against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Singapore March 23, 2020. REUTERS/Joseph Campbell
More than 100 vaccines are being developed globally, including several already in human trials from the likes of AstraZeneca (AZN.L) and Pfizer (PFE.N), to try and control a disease that has infected more than 8 million people and killed over 430,000 worldwide.
The vaccine being evaluated by Singapores Duke-NUS Medical School works on the relatively-untested Messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which instructs human cells to make specific coronavirus proteins that produce an immune response.
The fact that it replicates and triggers a very balanced immune response, both in terms of the antibody and killer cells - those are welcome properties, Ooi Eng Eong, deputy director of the schools emerging infectious diseases programme, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Antibodies stick to the virus and prevent it from infecting cells, while killer cells, another arm of the immune system, recognise infected cells and destroy them, he said.
The mRNA approach has not yet been approved for any medicine so its backers, which also include U.S. biotech firm Moderna (MRNA.O), are treading uncharted territory.
Because of that, Ooi said longer studies were needed to ensure its safety.
The most optimistic case is that its about this time next year, that we will have a vaccine, Ooi said.
Ooi is also working on a monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19 and will begin safety trials on healthy people this week, before testing on COVID-19 patients in the coming months.
Ooi said potential deployment of the treatment could be faster than the vaccine, without giving an exact timeline.
Antibodies are generated in the body to fight off infection. Monoclonal antibodies mimic natural antibodies and can be isolated and manufactured in large quantities to treat diseases.
Tiny city-state Singapore has one of the highest infection tallies in Asia, with more than 40,000 cases, largely due to mass outbreaks in dormitories for its migrant workers.
Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Editing by Himani Sarkar
As multiple companies inch closer to a potentially life-saving vaccine for the coronavirus, cybercriminals with varying motives have increased attacks.
Image: howtogoto, Getty Images/iStockphoto
Governments, companies and educational institutions around the world have banded together to come up with a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19. But efforts to collectively come up with a cure have been undermined by a diverse array of cyberattacks from government actors looking to outright steal information about potential vaccines.
SEE: Coronavirus: Critical IT policies and tools every business needs (TechRepublic Premium)
Over the last three months, there have been multiple reported government-led cyberattacks on COVID-19 research teams and facilities, between adversaries and allies.
The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency caused waves in May when they outright accused China of spearheading multiple attacks in search of COVID-19 research but since then a number of reports have come out showing the problem is far more widespread.
Vietnamese hackers went after China's Ministry of Emergency Management and Wuhan officials looking for more information on potential COVID-19 treatments, while Iranian cyberteams were caught trying to digitally break into Gilead Sciences, maker of the therapeutic drug Remdesivir, which was recently given the green light by the Food and Drug Administration for clinical trials.
SEE: Life after lockdown: Your office job will never be the same--here's what to expect (cover story PDF) (TechRepublic)
Google released a report highlighting the growth in attacks that healthcare organizations were facing by governments looking for cures. Organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are seeing fivefold increases in cyberattacks coming from places like South Korea and teams across South America.
A European biotech source for Reuters told the news outlet that many of the companies working on COVID-19 vaccines, cures and treatments are now forced to work on air-gapped computers without access to the internet to protect the research.
During a webinar with CISO MAG earlier this month, Bryan Ware, assistant director for the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the attacks being led by the Chinese government were "hindering vaccine development in the US," and the government body released its own memo to vaccine researchers urging them to beef up defenses.
"APT (Advanced persistent threat) groups frequently target such organizations in order to steal sensitive research data and intellectual property for commercial and state benefit. Organizations involved in COVID-19-related research are attractive targets for APT actors looking to obtain information for their domestic research efforts into COVID-19-related medicine," the government agency reported in a joint alert with the United Kingdom's National Cyber Security Centre.
"These organizations' global reach and international supply chains increase exposure to malicious cyber actors. Actors view supply chains as a weak link that they can exploit to obtain access to better-protected targets. Many supply chain elements have also been affected by the shift to remote working and the new vulnerabilities that have resulted."
SEE: Cybersecurity: Let's get tactical (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
The release adds that multiple government cyberattackers have been caught looking at the external websites of targeted companies and looking for vulnerabilities in unpatched software, specifically a vulnerability with Citrix and others with virtual private network (VPN) products.
Chris Pierson, who spent nine years on the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee & Cybersecurity Subcommittee at the Department of Homeland Security, said his cybersecurity company BlackCloak has onboarded several different corporate executive groups that are in the pharmaceutical and healthcare fields in the past four weeks because of the amount of attacks they've been getting.
"We've already equaled or exceeded last year's numbers in terms of attacks. I only think it's going to get worse. It's such a hot area. If you think about it, the amount of research and development money that is being spent by the pharmaceutical industry right now is probably at an all-time high to rush to a vaccine or a treatment or some type of therapy that will lessen the impacts of COVID-19. Literally lives are on the line," Pierson said.
"This is a fertile hunting ground for nation-states to be able to use and steal the IP and R&D from these companies and use it themselves, potentially to beat another company to the solution. With so many folks so strained as a result of COVID-19 remote work, there is a higher chance for there to be a weakening in cyberdefenses."
Pierson noted that now is a perfect time for cyberattackers to hit companies because the workforce is distributed, giving them a wider attack surface.
This has created a two-fold problem for researchers, scientists, and healthcare executives because state actors can now infiltrate home networks through the devices of family members or children. Pierson explained that BlackCloak conducted research that showed 68% of the top executives from the main 20-30 pharmaceutical companies already have credentials exposed on the dark web from other data breaches. A number of the credentials included emails and passwords coming from a LinkedIn breach in 2015.
SEE: Zero trust security: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
Pierson noted that most executives reused the same passwords over years in both personal and work accounts.
Mick Jenkins, CISO of Brunel University in the United Kingdom, said it was difficult for organizations to know what kind of cyber defense was necessary because each institution had a different level of maturity in terms of security.
Jenkins previously worked for the UK government and said there are "battalions of people" working on hacking COVID-19 research institutions and vaccine researchers. These groups start by looking at the easiest way into organizations by looking through all the people that work there.
Once they have a few targets, they may decide to try phishing emails or an "RDP" as well as password spraying before trying to move laterally within the organization.
"They're harvesting usernames, email addresses, and passwords from prior breaches. They may have your Gmail username and password, and they're going to try to figure out your work email address and automate the spray of that against a public website, VPN or an email," said Steve Moore, chief security strategist at cybersecurity company Exabeam.
"They're going to see if those commonly used passwords work. If I were in charge, I would want to monitor the use of credentials both on the edge and internal to my company, so credential behavior. Anything that just has a username and password only will be stolen and reused. If it doesn't have some other factor to it, ideally adaptive authentication, it's no good."
In the academic sector, the level of cybersecurity varied greatly but Jenkins said the current climate was a perfect example of why now more than ever, people should understand that cybersecurity comes down to every COVID-19 researcher, doctor, and consultant.
SEE: Security expert weighs in on cybersecurity regulation and ransomware attacks of US cities (TechRepublic)
"The stakes are high here across the globe, and we know everyone is looking for an advantage with a vaccine, including the big players in espionage like Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea. Organizations need to have security briefings so people know that if they get contacted, they should report it," Jenkins said. "They also need compartmentalized portals where access control is very rigorous. The research data that is being generated should be protected in a safe data haven through various different cyber techniques but access control needs to be rigorous."
Governments are also doing their part, providing in-depth cybersecurity guidance to universities, pharmaceutical companies, and research institutions for their work on sensitive topics like COVID-19.
Moore said the number of phishing emails they are seeing have risen significantly in healthcare companies.
"Many countries are doing this because they all need an edge. Is there a treatment method that's better? Is a saliva or nasal swab better? What's the data say? All of these countries want a head start," he said. "This is the first-world event we've had that is affecting everyone, so the stakes are high."
A number of cybersecurity experts said the increase in attacks related to COVID-19 research was an indicator that digital security now needed to take a prominent role in how all organizations build.
Cybersecurity teams need to be adaptive and responsive to threats while also managing detection and mitigation, according to Joe McMann, North America Cyberstrategy lead for cybersecurity company Capgemini.
Every university and healthcare organization should have a firm understanding of every asset, where it is, and what is being done to protect it, McMann added. As noted by the FBI and CISA, patching, access management and multi-factor authentication were all extremely important.
Jenkins added that organizations need to have a platform that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and automation while giving visibility across an entire environment. Anyone working with high-value data should be operating in a zero-trust environment, he said.
Moore added that companies should know what their time-to-answer is for their cybersecurity teams because you may be able to mitigate the problem depending on how fast you can contain an attack. Automation is also key because there are generally too many threats for people to handle.
"What has happened is the overall activity has increased. That's normal with any significant world event, but the status in the world of pharmaceutical or medical research has changed a bit," McMann said. "They've always been a piece of the critical infrastructure and always fulfilled an important role in society but right now it's heightened, so the risk they face has shifted."
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Good morning, everyone, and how are you today? We are doing just fine, thank you, despite the general uncertainty these days. After all, the birds are still chirping and a cool breeze is wafting by. Moreover, this marks the middle of the week, which means we have managed to persevere this far. And this calls for celebration, yes? So please join us as we hoist another cup of delicious stimulation. Remember, no prescription is required. Meanwhile, here are a few items of interest. Have a grand day, and drop us a line if you hear something saucy.
The European Commission called for global leaders to cooperate to buy bulk quantities of potential Covid-19 vaccines to avoid harmful competition and ensure any future vaccine is available to poor countries, Reuters reports. With a dozen potential vaccines now in human trials, rich countries are rushing to buy doses in advance from drug makers to ensure supplies should any prove successful. The European Commission is worried this could raise prices for everyone and also leave many countries, mostly poor ones, struggling to obtain a supply.
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STAT Plus is STAT's premium subscription service for in-depth biotech, pharma, policy, and life science coverage and analysis.Our award-winning team covers news on Wall Street, policy developments in Washington, early science breakthroughs and clinical trial results, and health care disruption in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Insurers generally have a strong financial interest in covering vaccines, seeing them as a win-win.
WASHINGTON U.S. officials say they expect health insurance companies will cover vaccines for COVID-19 without charging copays, once those vaccines are developed and become available.
At a briefing for reporters Tuesday, a senior Trump administration official said the government has been talking with insurers about offering vaccines at no cost to patients. The industry earlier made a similar commitment to cover testing for the coronavirus without charging copays.
The White House has launched an initiative to quickly manufacture millions of doses of COVID vaccines, once the Food and Drug Administration approves one or more formulations. Candidate vaccines are in early trials, and the goal considered ambitious is to have 300 million doses by early next year.
Senior administration officials provided an overview of that effort on Tuesday on condition that they not be publicly identified. The White House initiative, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, is a joint project of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon, under the overall direction of HHS.
Insurers generally have a strong financial interest in covering vaccines, seeing them as a win-win. Vaccination helps the insurers' customers stay healthy, and preventing disease saves the companies money.
In the case of preventive services, it goes beyond financial incentives. Insurers are also required by the Affordable Care Act to provide coverage at no charge to patients. A range of screening tests, immunizations and birth control for women are already covered under the Obama-era law. President Donald Trump is still pressing to overturn Obamacare as unconstitutional.
ODMs in aggregate account for the largest portion of the public cloud market, in terms of market share, with Dell ISG being the leading individual vendor, followed by Microsoft, Inspur and Cisco.
New data shows worldwide spend on data centre hardware and software declined by 2% from the first quarter of 2019 as the market was impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, according to Synergy Research Group.
The research group said that the pandemic had relatively little impact on public cloud data centre infrastructure, where hardware and software vendors saw their revenues increase by 3%, but sales to enterprises and traditional service providers declined by 4%.
The Q1 market leader in enterprise infrastructure was Microsoft, followed by Dell, HPE, Cisco and VMware.
Total data centre infrastructure equipment revenues, including both cloud and non-cloud, hardware and software, were $35.8 billion in Q1, with public cloud infrastructure accounting for over 37% of the total.
The main hardware-oriented segments of servers, storage and networking in aggregate accounted for 73% of the data centre infrastructure market. OS, virtualization software, cloud management and network security account for the balance, according to the data.
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By segment, Dell is the leader in both server and storage revenues, while Cisco is dominant in the networking segment.
Microsoft features heavily in the rankings due to its position in server OS and virtualization applications. Outside of these three, the other leading vendors in the market are HPE, VMware, Inspur, Huawei, IBM, Lenovo and NetApp. Inspur is the major vendor with the highest growth rate.
Cloud service revenues continue to grow by almost 40% per year, enterprise SaaS revenues are growing by almost 25%, search/social networking revenues are growing by over 15%, and e-commerce revenues are growing by over 20%, all of which are helping to drive growth and increased spending on public cloud infrastructure, said John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group.
Notably, most of these services are either little impacted by COVID-19 or may be stimulated by changed enterprise and consumer behaviour.
On the other hand, many enterprises have been negatively impacted by the pandemic resulting in increased pressure on capital budgets and more impetus on shifting workloads to public cloud providers.
Read the latest from the Data Economy Newsroom:
Robert F. Bukaty | AP
Robert F. Bukaty | AP
Kevin Norsworthy, State Theater's "marquee master," puts a new message outside the venue Tuesday in Portland.
Today is Wednesday. There have now been 2,819 confirmed and likely cases of the new coronavirus in all of Maines counties since the outbreak began here in March, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Tuesday saw the fewest new daily cases nine since April 27, when eight infections were confirmed. No new deaths were reported on Tuesday. In the past week, only one death has been confirmed.
So far, 321 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, while 2,233 people have fully recovered from the virus, meaning there are 485 active and likely cases in the state, according to the Maine CDC. Thats down from 520 on Monday.
A majority of the cases have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.
Heres a roundup of the latest news about the coronavirus and its impact in Maine.
The Maine CDC will provide an update on the coronavirus at 2 p.m. The BDN will livestream the briefing.
Twelve of Maines 16 counties are now reporting fewer than 10 active cases of the virus, including three Piscataquis, Aroostook and Washington counties with zero. The prevalence of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, also seems to finally be dropping in more heavily populated southern Maine counties even as the state has ramped up testing in recent weeks. Charles Eichacker, BDN
Wednesday marks a major milestone in Maines gradual economic reopening as restrictions lift on restaurants and other businesses in the three counties where the majority of Maines coronavirus cases have been concentrated. Here is a guide to Wednesdays reopenings. Michael Shepherd, BDN
As businesses reopen across the U.S. after coronavirus shutdowns, many are requiring customers and workers to sign forms saying they wont sue if they catch COVID-19, the illness caused by the new virus. Critics argue that liability waivers open the door for corporations to skirt protocols like erecting Plexiglas barriers, providing face masks and other protective equipment and keeping people the proper distance apart without suffering any repercussions. Tom Krisher and Mark Sherman, The Associated Press
Workers who rely on direct deposit for their unemployment benefits did not see usual payments on Tuesday morning due to what the Maine Department of Labor described as an unprecedented volume of claims. The department said Tuesday morning that benefits might be delayed by 24 hours. Benefits were delayed for a similar reason the first week of April. Jessica Piper, BDN
While Ntension is far from the only company that has pivoted to mask-making during the pandemic Maine-based L.L. Bean and New Balance also started using their manufacturing facilities to make masks it stands out as a company that now sees the manufacturing of PPE as a permanent part of its business model. Emily Burnham, BDN
At a time when the remaining restaurants across the state prepare to reopen indoor dining Wednesday under health and spacing guidelines, one Maine chain has fared comparatively well during pandemic restrictions. Portland Pie Co., which has five company-owned restaurants and two franchises, plans to open another location in Windham next week and start construction on one in Lewiston in the fall, its owner said. It also is scouting an Augusta location. Lori Valigra, BDN
Bangor will reopen its playgrounds, parks and basketball courts starting Wednesday due to Penobscot Countys low number of active cases of COVID-19. Nick Sambides Jr., BDN
Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve COVID-19 survival: A cheap, widely available steroid called dexamethasone reduced deaths by up to a third in severely ill hospitalized patients. Marilynn Marchione, The Associated Press
As early Wednesday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 2,137,731 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 116,963 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
Elsewhere in New England, there have been 7,664 coronavirus deaths in Massachusetts, 4,210 in Connecticut, 865 in Rhode Island, 326 in Connecticut and 55 in Vermont.
By
SARA CLINE Associated Press/Report for America
June 17, 2020, 2:28 AM
3 min read
3 min read
SALEM, Ore. -- A church in rural northeastern Oregon is now the epicenter of the state's largest coronavirus outbreak, as 236 people tested positive for the disease, authorities said Tuesday.
The outbreak also led to Oregon's second consecutive record-setting daily case count.
I think generally we are seeing increasing numbers, which is what we expected with reopening, said Thomas Jeanne, the deputy state health officer and deputy state epidemiologist.
In response to the increasing case counts Gov. Kate Brown last week said she was putting all county applications for further reopening from her COVID-19 restrictions on hold for seven days.
The Oregon Health Authority reported 278 new statewide cases Tuesday a 51% increase from Mondays case count. Officials cited the rise in cases due largely to increased testing, contact tracing, workplace outbreaks as well as potential spread in the community.
The largest outbreak, which was first made public Monday, is associated with Lighthouse Pentecostal Church in Union County.
The Observer newspaper of La Grande reported that the church held services in April and May even though Oregon COVID-19 restrictions limited gatherings. Also, The Observer reported the facility recently held a wedding and a graduation ceremony, each with more than 100 people.
Attempts by The Associated Press to reach representatives of the church were not successful Tuesday.
The health authority and county officials teamed up with the church over the weekend to hold a clinic where 356 people were tested for the virus 66% tested positive for coronavirus, officials reported.
Currently, five people associated with the outbreak are hospitalized, Jeanne said. The county does not have any confirmed fatalities from coronavirus.
Prior to the outbreak, the county had less than 25 cases during the pandemic.
We have tested the majority of the congregation at the church in Union County, Jeanne said. At this point we hope there will not be a lot more (cases), but that is what contact tracing, quarantine and follow up will be important for.
Over the last 14 days, 35% of cases have not been linked to a specific transmission, Jeanne said.
We are concerned about these trends, particularly the sporadic cases that can't be traced to a specific outbreak or cluster, because they indicate how much community spread is occurring the type of spread that we are less able to control through testing, case investigation, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine, Jeanne said.
Tuesdays case count brings the new total number of people who have tested positive for coronavirus in Oregon to 6,098. In addition, two more people have died from the disease, raising the states death toll to 182.
For most, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
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