Countermeasures
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will lift its ban on the Trusted Traveler Program (TTP) for New York residents.
The ban, in place since February, was lifted after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature amended the law that prevents sharing of information to federal law... Read More »
California seeks to bolster its strategic stockpile of protective masks to guarantee the shortcomings exposed by the COVID-19 outbreak never happen again, and as part of that, the state has signed a new contract with BYD North America for 420 million masks.
That order includes 120 million N-95... Read More »
Progress on protecting nuclear materials and facilities against theft and sabotage has slowed significantly over the past two years, the Nuclear Threat Initiativeʻs 2020 NTI Nuclear Security Index has found.
The decline in the rate of improvement to national regulatory structures and the global... Read More »
Scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published a framework in the New England Journal of Medicine this week for efforts to increase the number, quality and type of daily tests for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to 6 million by the end of 2020.
This has taken the... Read More »
The U.S. Senate’s 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes legislation that
would help the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warn the owners and operators of critical infrastructure computer systems that it is vulnerable to cyberattacks.
The bill gives... Read More »
A new agreement reached between Bavarian Nordic A/S and AdaptVac for 4 million euros upfront will allow Bavarian to license AdaptVac’s capsid virus like particle (cVLP) technology for coronaviruses.
Of particular note here is that the agreement gives Bavarian global commercialization rights to... Read More »
The House of Representatives’ recent unanimous vote to extend the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program (CFATS) has garnered plaudits from lawmakers and chemical industry organizations.
CFATS is the nation’s first regulatory program focusing specifically on security at high-risk... Read More »
A pair of lawmakers are espousing the benefits of the House of Representatives’ passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY21.
Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Adam Smith (D-WA), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, offered statements regarding the... Read More »
A new program -- the National Testing Implementation Forum -- announced by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week will gather input from private stakeholders across the U.S. to inform federal testing and diagnostics efforts for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes... Read More »
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) has extended a call for proposals on COVID-19 vaccines until September, pushing for licensure, efficacy and safety in quick order: a timeframe of just 12-18 months.
The coalition is working to guarantee that manufacturing capabilities and capacities... Read More »
A federal grand jury in Spokane, Wash., indicted two hackers from the People’s Republic of China for alleged cyberattacks on hundreds of computer systems of companies, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in the United States and abroad.
Officials alleged the global... Read More »
Up to 600 million doses of a vaccine candidate produced by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech could be acquired by the United States government under a deal penned this week.
All of this would be conditional on the vaccine’s successful manufacture and either Emergency Use Authorization or licensure... Read More »
U.S. Reps. Jim Langevin (D-RI) and Mike Gallagher (R-WI), commissioners of the Cyberspace Solarium, applauded the inclusion of budget amendments to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that implement recommendations from the Solarium Commission’s report.
The Cyberspace Solarium... Read More »
Republican committee leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives are urging the Trump administration to impose consequences on China-linked hackers who have targeted U.S. institutions, including sanctions.
“We applaud your administration’s work to ramp up the investigation and prosecution... Read More »
First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) officials said the high-speed broadband communications platform dedicated to first responders has expanded across North Carolina as a means of advancing public safety communications.
“FirstNet is a dedicated broadband platform for public safety, by... Read More »
Sens. Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) introduced Monday legislation targeting potentially harmful counterfeit medical products while also protecting patients from such dangers.
The Safeguarding Therapeutics Act would empower the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to seize and destroy... Read More »
CureVac and GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) have signed an agreement to work together on the research, development, manufacturing, and marketing of as many as five mRNA-based vaccines and monoclonal antibodies for use against infectious diseases.
By collaborating, CureVac gains access to GSK’s mRNA... Read More »
A coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University produced strong immune responses in a phase 1/2 trial of 1,077 people, scientists from the Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group reported this week, possibly heralding a safe and effective candidate.
The findings of the UK trial, which... Read More »
Several biopharmaceutical companies are working in unprecedented fashion to develop, manufacture and deliver a safe and effective vaccine to combat COVID-19 as soon as is humanly possible.
Executives from five companies developing COVID-19 vaccine candidates — AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson &... Read More »
The United States was just as dangerously unprepared to combat a coronavirus pandemic in 2020 as it was back in 2015, former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman noted in the opening remarks of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense’s virtual meeting on Tuesday, setting the tone for a critical examination of... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reissued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Quest Diagnostics for its COVID-19 test.
The Quest test is the first COVID-19 diagnostic test to be authorized for use with pooled samples containing up to four individual swab specimens collected under... Read More »
A group of U.S. Senators recently called on Congress to provide at least $5.6 billion in federal funding to support the COVID-19 vaccine infrastructure.
The funding -- needed to boost the country’s vaccine supply and distribution system -- should be included in the next coronavirus relief... Read More »
Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) forwarded correspondence last week to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) personnel, urging efforts to bolster cybersecurity infrastructure against Russia and China threats.
Gardner maintains the advocacy... Read More »
A group of Florida lawmakers recently forwarded correspondence to the Department of Health and Human Services as a means of increasing the state’s COVID-19 drug allotment.
Reps. Donna Shalala (D-FL) and Charlie Crist (D-FL) joined Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rick Scott (R-FL) in leading the... Read More »
Under an agreement with Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, the United Kingdom will receive 30 million doses of their BNT162 mRNA-based vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2, expected to be delivered over the next year.
While the drug -- four vaccine candidates operating under the broader BNT162 category... Read More »
With news that appropriations bills aimed at addressing the COVID-19 pandemic had passed out of House committees this week, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) examined and declared the bills to provide critical resources, albeit with significant gaps and inadequate funding.
This... Read More »
The U.S. Army has awarded FLIR Systems a $21.8 million contract to deliver its Agentase C2 spray to detect G- and V-series nerve agents, which are highly toxic chemical warfare agents.
It is a full-rate production option worth $21.8 million on an indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity (IDIQ)... Read More »
Recently released study findings published in The Lancet Public Health journal has determined contact tracing speed strategies to be essential to slowing COVID-19 transmission.
Contact tracing involves tracking down all of the people who have been in contact with an infected individual so they... Read More »
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is calling on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and implement a COVID-19 wastewater surveillance program.
Testing wastewater has been proven as a successful method to detect viruses and... Read More »
A trio of lawmakers have introduced a bill they said requires the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to conduct a trial program to check passenger temperatures before advancing through airport security.
Reps. Ralph Norman (R-SC), Ted Budd (R-NC) and John Larson (D-CT) said the TSA... Read More »
While treatments for COVID-19 remain under research, Novartis announced a new initiative for low- and middle-income countries this week that will supply 15 generic and over-the-counter medicines at zero-profit as a way of treating symptoms.
The policy is only meant as a hold-over until a vaccine... Read More »
Looking to inform decision making during a pandemic, COVID-Local has created a policy mapping tool and database for communities, giving them a way to measure the effects of their COVID-19-related actions against specific policies.
COVID Analysis and Mapping of Policies is meant to identify... Read More »
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), along with other infectious disease associations, are opposed to the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The decision will weaken the nation’s ability to control the... Read More »
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced a deal to work with Smiths Medical to expand the domestic manufacturing capacity for safety needles and syringes.
BARDA, along with the DoD’s Joint Program Executive Office for... Read More »
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) officials said the organization has launched Finding Exploits to Thwart Tampering (FETT), its inaugural bug bounty program.
The endeavor, which officials said seeks to uncover potential weaknesses within new secure processors in development on the... Read More »
