Some strong positives in the war against Covid-19:

Abbott

Abbott came out with their 5 to 13 minute toaster size molecular  point-of-care Covid-19 test.  It received emergency approval from FDA.   In layman terms, the virus is opened using reagents, then the released genetic material is replicated so even extremely small amounts can be detected.   Abbott is said to be ramping up production.  I would love to see this toaster at the drive-thru testing facilities.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced at his daily COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday afternoon that Bergen County, New Jersey will be the site for a new rapid test from Abbott Laboratories.

Elon Musk

How did Musk get 1225 ventilators so quickly, when the federal government couldn’t:  “China had an oversupply, so we bought 1255 FDA-approved ResMed, Philips & Medtronic ventilators on Friday night & airshipped them to LA,” Musk said on Twitter.   I’m sure patients and hospitals couldn’t give a damn about where these ventilators were sourced.

Gilead

Gilead is conducting limited clinical trials on their drug, remdesivir, in China.  Per their  Gilead website:  “The limited preclinical data on remdesivir in MERS and SARS indicate that remdesivir may have potential activity against COVID-19.   Remdesivir is an experimental medicine that does not have established safety or efficacy for the treatment of any condition. ”  It is being referred to in the media as the Ebola drug.  It is hope to slow or block the virus replication once in a healthy cell.    Gilead hopes to have results of clinical studies by the end of April.

Stay tuned and stay healthy,

Dave

Links:

Gilead story 

The other stories are very easy to find with a Google search.