Notations From the Grid (Special Sunday Edition): On the #CoronaVirusUpdate

Our team has been assessing the Corona Virus Epidemic as the Economist of London said it well:  It is going Global. We will continue to provide guidance/updates daily through our Twitter Corner, Ordinary Faces, as we note a sampling of the coverage--and as we note that Orange County, our home county, declared an Emergency to deal with the challenges at hand as the World continues to grapple with it--Please visit the following resources for the latest and the updates: Centers for Disease Control & Prevention:  https://www.cdc.gov/  World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/ Tracking the Corona Virus Worldwide--By Johns Hopkins: https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/01/23/coronavirus-outbreak-mapping-tool-649-em1-art1-dtd-health/

World Pence struggles to win over critics as US coronavirus co-ordinator Critics point to record of scepticism of established medical science by vice-president FEBRUARY 27, 2020 by James Politi and Courtney Weaver in Washington World How coronavirus could upend the US election Donald Trump has bet his reputation on something he cannot control FEBRUARY 27, 2020 by Edward Luce Coronavirus: French govt says number of confirmed cases has jumped from 18 to 38  Read more on France24.com COVID-19 Emergency Press Release and Declarations 02/26/2020 04:08 PM PST The County of Orange has declared a local emergency and a local health emergency to prepare for COVID-19, commonly known as novel coronavirus. "The County of Orange and our County Health Officer Dr. Nichole Quick have declared a local emergency. We have issued these declarations in light of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's comments on COVID-19 yesterday, along with the possibility of active COVID-19 patients being brought to Fairview Developmental Center in my district in Costa Mesa," said Chairwoman Michelle Steel, Second District. "Although there are currently no cases of coronavirus in Orange County, my goal is to ensure all residents and visitors to Orange County as well as all of our resources can be prepared in the event of an outbreak." We remain hopeful:  February 27, 2020 I’m in Florida, at the Lake Nona Impact Forum, where I had the opportunity to interview a man who is trying to cure Covid-19. Given his track record, he may well succeed. He is George Yancopoulos, chief science officer and cofounder of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Yancopoulos developed a treatment for Ebola , using an innovative technique that involves infecting thousands of mice implanted with human genes to find protective antibodies. Now he’s doing the same for the new coronavirus. If all goes well, Regeneron could be producing a treatment within two or three months. Yancopoulos got his start in health science as a high school student, when he won the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, which later became the Intel Science Talent Search and now, thanks to Yancopoulos, is the Regeneron Science Talent Search. When I asked his advice for government policy makers on health care, he answered: “There is so much focus on affordability and access in health care. And price is a huge burden. But we don’t pay enough attention to the biggest problem, which is the huge burden of disease. We should be focusing our attention on innovation, to try and come up with solutions. That’s far more important than affordability and access. If we don’t come up with innovations that change the future, it’s all going to be over.” My conversation with Yancopoulos reminded me why I’m glad to have made the transition from working in Washington, where I spent the first half of my career, to writing about business. Business, at its best, is focused on solving difficult problems; the federal government, increasingly, won’t fix even the easy ones.