There can be no doubt that cases of COVID19 aka Corona Virus has now spread worldwide. We are now in the midst of a worldwide PANDEMIC with over 100,731 confirmed cases and 3,412 deaths. The good news is that 55,997 cases have fully recovered.
On February 4, 2020, the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to enable emergency use of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel. To date, this test has been limited to use at CDC laboratories; today’s authorization allows the use of the test at any CDC-qualified lab across the country.
FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, M.D. said,
“Since this outbreak first emerged, we’ve been working closely with our partners across the U.S government and around the globe to expedite the development and availability of critical medical products to help end this outbreak as quickly as possible. This continues to be an evolving situation and the ability to distribute this diagnostic test to qualified labs is a critical step forward in protecting the public health. Our collaboration with the CDC has been vital to rapidly developing and facilitating access to this diagnostic test. The FDA remains deeply committed to utilizing our regulatory tools and leveraging our technical and scientific expertise to advance the availability of critical medical products to respond to this outbreak in the most expeditious, safe and effective manner possible.”
The full FDA press release is included below:
CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE CORONA VIRUS FDA NEWS RELEASE 2-4-2020
Pharmaceutical companies are in the spotlight as they race to develop treatments for the rapidly spreading Wuhan Corona Virus. Firms like Novavax, AbbVie and Vir Biotechnology are among those developing potential vaccines and treatments for the disease.
GlobalData’s new Coronavirus Social Media Dashboard analyses Twitter activity to help readers identify the latest trending keywords, hashtags, mentioned companies and countries. The dashboard tracks Twitter activity around the outbreak in near real-time providing a unique insight into what expert influencers and leading organisations are saying about the spread of the disease.
COMMENTARY:
Corona Virus FDA approved CDC Corona Virus Test Kits in Short Supply
After a weekslong delay, thousands of Corona Virus test kits are headed to state and local laboratories, Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday, March 4, 2020.
But questions remain about when, exactly, those promised test kits will arrive and how well they will work.
Pence said during a meeting Wednesday with diagnostic lab CEOs.
"We have more than 2,500 kits that are being distributed around the country this week that will make more than 1.5 million tests available at hospitals that have requested them, and in areas of the country that have been particularly impacted by the Corona Virus."
Federal health officials have been scrambling to increase access to Corona Virus testing following a series of initial blunders, including limiting testing strictly to those with symptoms and those who had either come into contact with a known patient or had traveled from China.
FDA approved CDC Corona Virus COVID19 Test Kits (Click Image To Enlarge)
What's more, the test kits the CDC first sent labs in January proved to be faulty, giving inconclusive results.
Such a large-scale snafu appears to be unprecedented.
Kelly Wroblewski, director of infection diseases for the Association of Pubic Health Laboratories, told NBC News,
"I can't remember it ever happening before. This was just, perhaps, the most unfortunate timing to have a manufacturing issue."
On Tuesday, Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Stephen Hahn testified before a Senate committee that the FDA was working with a private company to increase testing capacity, though this will not happen immediately. Wednesday afternoon, Pence said that two of the major commercial diagnostic labs, LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics, would be conducting the test next week.
As of Wednesday morning, only about 70 public health labs were able to test for the Corona Virus, Wroblewski said. (The private company mentioned by Hahn will be providing tests to other labs, not public health labs.)
Those 70 include hospitals, military bases, Department of Defense labs, as well as other state and local public health labs, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Association of Public Health Laboratories estimates that if 100 labs are up and running by the end of this week, about 10,000 tests per day could be performed.
Wroblewski said.
"Everybody feels better this week than they did last week. For the last three weeks or so, we've been so focused on having a test up and running. We're excited to be in a place where we're able to do that."
The Department of Forensic Sciences in Washington, D.C., a public health facility, started testing for the new Corona Virus on Monday.
How GlobalData's Corona Virus Social Media Dashboard Can Help Marketers and Medical Industry
On March 4, 2020, President Donald Trump appointed Vice-President Mike Pence to control all information concerning the Corona Virus aka COVID19 from the infectious disease government agencies. The establishment by the White House to put a muzzle on all information flowing from the federal government health agencies like the HHS, CDC, NIH, FDA, HRSA and NCEZI, to name a few, means that the true story regarding the extent of infections caused by the Corona Virus may not be accurate.
President Donald Trump's attempt to limit information about the Corona Virus originating from federal health agencies is nothing less than attempt by the President to limit the impact of information that may affect his ability to get re-elected. Never in the history of our country has a President placed a muzzle on federal government information in order to insure he is re-elected. This is what despots and dictators do, so watch out.
If you are a marketer, economist, human resource official, health or medical official (local, state or federal), a member of the mainstream media that relies on accurate information about the Corona Virus, I would refer you to the Corona Virus Social Media Dashboard to get a real-time "big picture" of what is going on right now as the Corona Virus infections and deaths increase.
The Corona Virus Social Media Dashboard consolidates the data in the form of tweets appearing on the Twitter social network. This data includes tweets from key Twitter influencers which cover and report on the Corona Virus.
The Dashboard looks at all #hashtags like #CoronaVirus, #COVID19, #CDC, #FDA, #HHS, etc and consolidates them to form a graph like the one below. As the volume of data (tweets and #hashtags) increases and added to the real-time graph a clearer picture starts to emerge. As you can see from the graph below tweets about the Corona Virus are running at historic highs. This is a Red Flag of the actuality of what is being reported by the public on Twitter.
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If you are a marketer for a company that relies on imports from China where the Corona Virus originated, you are very much aware of how a pandemic of this magnitude can profoundly affect your bottom line, particularly if you cannot produce finished goods because you cannot get the needed parts or generate sales if you don't have the inventory on hand to meet consumer demand. Already there is a run on surgical gloves, masks, gas masks, hand sanitizers and many other products originating from China, So Korea, Japan and Italy.
Entire industries have already been affected by the Corona Virus. Travel has been hit hard. The airlines, hospitality and cruise lines have been hit the hardest. The airlines could lose $65-$113 billion this year. The White House is discussing the possibility of providing financial support like Trump did for farmers hit by the imposition of tariffs against China.
The novel Corona Virus continues to wreak havoc in the global technology industry. Many companies have shut factories and banned business-related travel and major industry events like Facebook's F8, the Geneva Motor Show, Google I/O and Mobile World Congress continue to be called off because of the outbreak. Apple's production of iPhones has been affected reducing the number of iPhones available to consumers.
The stock markets have all been affected as fears of the Corona Virus' affect on earnings have investors scrambling for safe havens like gold. Particularly hard hit has been the Dow-Jones Industrial Average (DOW). The DOW was at 29,551.42 on February 12. By March 6, the DOW had dropped to 25,865.78.
Courtesy of Pharmaceutical Technology's Corona Virus Social Media Dashboard, an FDA News Release dated February 4, 2020 for Emergency Use Authorization of Corona Virus Test Kit and an NBC News article dated March 4, 2020 titled "Officials Say Corona Virus Test Kits Are Here, But Where Are They?"
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