Johnson & Johnson identifies lead COVID-19 vaccine candidate, FDA approves 5-minute coronavirus test

Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani joins On The Move to discuss the latest developments in testing and developing treatments for COVID-19.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: But joining us right now to bring us up to speed on all of the news about coronavirus-- COVID-19-- is on Anjalee Khemlani. Anjalee?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Thanks, Adam. Yep, so as you mentioned, we've got a lot of news out of the health care sector over the weekend. Specifically, I just want to start with the numbers.

We know that worldwide cases have topped 740,000, with 35,000 deaths, and about a third of those coming out of Italy. Meanwhile, the US at more than 140,000 cases right now. And that number, as we know, is going to continue rising as we have more testing come online.

And related, we had-- you know, we have even more coming out on the testing front, with things like 3D printed parts coming into the mix. And so that's really going to help with getting better clarity. We know that there has been an expansion of the stay-at-home strategy rolled out at the federal level. And so that is also going to help flatten that curve that we're still trying to do.

Meanwhile, as you mentioned, Johnson and Johnson just announced today that they are, in fact-- they have, in fact, identified their first vaccine candidate, and they are looking at a one-month rollout for getting it to the market. And that will be after clinical trials start in September of this year, which is a little bit-- just a little bit earlier than they had originally anticipated, stating it would be November. But that does not reduce, really, the timeline that we have already seen, you know, rolling out for vaccines.

It's also important to remember that Moderna is already in clinical trials, but that they may not have, necessarily, the resources to ramp up the way that Johnson and Johnson is, which is already preparing a billion doses to be ready by the time they hit market. Meanwhile, over the weekend, we saw that the malaria drug-- both variations-- hydrochloroquine sulfate and chloroquine phosphate-- both from Novartis's Sandoz and Bayer, do have emergency use approval, which is putting this drug that is already used for lupus and arthritis patients in short supply, which is the reports of what we've heard, really, in the last week.

The Health Department did emphasize that this does not mean that it is necessarily safe for broad use. We are looking at, you know, clinical trials that are necessary still to prove the efficacy of it. But that is now available for use. And that's the first major move on the treatment side.

Meanwhile, as well, on the insurance, we know that Cigna and Humana came out as the second and third insurance companies to say they will cover treatment for COVID-19, all inpatient treatment costs waived. So that's a really big move. And CVS was the first to come up, but that was only for in-network coverage. These two are doing in-network and out-of-network.