J&J jumping in on coronavirus vax work as disease continues its spread

Johnson & Johnson is joining the growing ranks of biopharmas, including the likes of Moderna and Gilead Sciences, in trying to create a speedy vaccine for the coronavirus out of China. Over the weekend, we learned of a wider range and more deaths as the new virus, which appears to have come out of Wuhan, China, is doing what these diseases do best: spread. The causes of death have so far been reported as pneumonia, with other reports suggesting most of these have come from those with underlying medical conditions. The emergence of a new virus is always a scary time, and researchers have been scrambling to try to assess how effective it is at spreading and how fatal it can prove to be in the general population.