Vaccines might have efficacy proof by winter, says University of Maryland School of Medicine Dr. Wilbur Chen, as he discusses potential coronavirus treatments and his input on Maryland’s Covid-19 task force. He speaks on "Bloomberg Markets: European Close." (Source: Bloomberg)

Two pharmaceutical companies announced a nearly $2 billion contract for 600 million doses of a vaccine, with the first 100 million promised before the end of the year.

To many people, networking feels a bit like squeezing into trousers one size too small. But networking is essential if you wish to amass the social capital indispensable to a successful career. Its importance has not diminished with the overnight explosion of remote working. If anything, networking has become more critical, as jobs and advancement opportunities are swept away by the coronavirus.

Robbie Kellman Baxter, a strategy consultant, says that subscriptions aren’t just for newspapers and Netflix. She argues that they can actually help companies — from local retailers to giant industrial manufacturers — earn more consistent revenue and develop stronger customer loyalty. And she explains how even during an economic crisis, leaders can adopt a subscription business model to give their organizations a better chance of surviving and thriving. Baxter is the author of the book The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave.

When I graduated from college in 2001, I didn’t have a single friend whose plan was to start his or her own business. Med school, law school, finance, consulting: these were the coveted jobs, the clear paths laid out before us. I took a job in advertising, which was seen as much more rebellious than the reality. I worked in advertising for a few years, and learned an incredible amount about how brands get built and communicated. 

Doing business on Zoom, WebEx, Teams and the like presents many challenges: the inability to read body language, video call fatigue, reduced participation of introverted team members, technical glitches, and so on. But what’s been overlooked is that these virtual platforms also give managers an extraordinary set of “superpowers”: the ability to do things in meetings that were either unthinkable or enormously challenging in the old days of conference tables and flip charts.

When Amazon.com Inc.’s venture-capital fund invested in DefinedCrowd Corp., it gained access to the technology startup’s finances and other confidential information.

Nearly four years later, in April, Amazon’s cloud-computing unit launched an artificial-intelligence product that does almost exactly what DefinedCrowd does, said DefinedCrowd founder and Chief Executive Daniela Braga.

The...

SEATTLE — When courier Brent Williams makes his daily deliveries around the city here, he runs into one persistent problem: There’s almost nowhere to use the restroom. Most public buildings are closed under the pandemic, and restaurants and coffee shops that have shifted to carryout service won’t let him use their facilities.

Image: https://www.pewtrusts.org

Hundreds of books and articles have been written about the importance of sleep and how it affects our performance at work. Some experts even say that showing up to work tired is the same as showing up to work drunk. Of course, getting enough sleep is easier said than done, especially if you’re a busy entrepreneur. 

How — and when — we work is fundamentally changing. Data from the 2018 American Time Use survey indicates that 30% of full-time employees report working weekends and holidays, and even when people officially have time off, that doesn’t mean they stop working. Moreover, the recent global shift to remote work due to the Covid-19 crisis could further exacerbate the situation: as the formal boundaries that separate work from non-work become even more blurred, employees may feel conflicted about what time is — and isn’t — meant for working.

While a majority of employers believe that that their employees will return to their workplaces after Covid-19’s impact diminishes, working from home isn’t going to disappear. The reality is that a huge number of people were already working from home (almost 10 million workers in the U.S. in 2019); that number is only likely to rise post-pandemic. As the manager of a remote team, you can’t afford to ignore underperformance from remote workers, whether they’re temporarily at home, working in local branch offices, or half a world away.

One of the scariest parts of the coronavirus pandemic is the idea that anyone could get infected at any time. With the virus circulating as widely as it is, anyone could be unlucky.

But while we are all at risk of COVID-19 infection, we are not all at equal risk. You’re clearly more likely to get sick if you live in an area currently experiencing a surge in cases, like Florida, Arizona and Texas. But even within the same city, your risk of getting infected is deeply tied to where you live.

BALTIMORE (WMAR) — Johns Hopkins is once again putting themselves in the national spotlight during this pandemic. First they created a COVID-19 cases map that’s widely used. Now they have developed an online curriculum to teach kids about the virus, turning them into advocates as a way to stop the spread.

"They’re going to be spreading this information with us and they’ll likely save more lives than any doctor or nurse ever could," said Johns Hopkins lung doctor Panagis Galiatsatos.

COLUMBIA, Md., July 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- TEDCO, Maryland's economic engine for technology companies, announced today that its Board of Directors has appointed Troy LeMaile-Stovall as Chief Executive Officer/Executive Director, effective September 7, 2020.

Troy A LeMaile-Stovall More "Troy's depth and breadth of experience in finance, investments, economic development and operational leadership will be a tremendous asset to the organization and to the diverse stakeholders we serve across the state of Maryland," stated Myra Norton, TEDCO's Chair of the Board and President of Arena.  "Troy's most compelling strengths go well beyond his impressive background and experience.  He is a galvanizing, inspiring and inclusive leader with a track record of delivering outcomes in challenging times.  We are delighted to welcome Troy, and look forward to supporting his leadership and the TEDCO team." 

When New York Police Detective Robert Garland's friend needed help to pay for his daughter's health care costs, he didn't waste time: He gathered his coworkers and started helping out.

Garland also suggested that his friend start a GoFundMe campaign. The response from his friend and coworker surprised him. Superior Officer Jason Stocker encouraged Garland to research the platform because he didn't believe the site was legitimate.

Image: (Left to right: CEO and founder Robert Garland, CCO and cofounder Kevin Darcey, Chief Marketing Director Aaron Padin and Chief Financial Officer and co-founder Mike LaLuna. Courtesy Photo.)

With the coronavirus pandemic gripping the world, governments everywhere are desperate to speed up the discovery of a vaccine. In the U.S., since May, this dire need has been addressed by a vaccine accelerator project called Operation Warp Speed (OWS), which subsidizes public and private companies to the tune of billions of dollars, to incentivize vaccine development at the fastest possible pace.

LabCorp CEO Adam Schechter told CNBC on Tuesday that the coronavirus is spreading faster in the U.S. than the company can expand testing capacity, leading to slower turnaround time for results. 

“We need all states to ensure we’re doing everything we can to better control the virus. If we can do that, then we’ll be able to have the tests that we need,” Schechter said on “Closing Bell.” 

Image: https://www.cnbc.com

Applications are still being accepted for the Ocean Startup Challenge, a competition aimed at supporting innovators in developing and implementing new technologies to solve large ocean problems.

As of Monday morning’s open on Wall Street, Apple — the listed US company that’s attracted the largest valuation of them all — had a market capitalisation of US$1.7-trillion.

In rand terms, and at the time of writing, that’s R28.5-trillion. South Africa’s nominal 2019 GDP was $358.8-billion, or R6-trillion. On that basis, Apple’s market value is 4.8 times the value of all the goods and services produced (the definition of gross domestic product) in South Africa in 2019.

As companies try to ride out the severe economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, certain industries are more badly affected than others. In particular, the luxury sector is likely to take one of the worst hits. Sales for this year’s spring season are 70 percent lower than last year’s. Swiss watch industry exports are expected to decline by 25 percent this year, the biggest drop in half a century. The future of fine dining is also far from certain.