(*This article was excerpted and translated from the webinar on April 22, 2022)
According to data from the COVID-19 Dashboard provided by Johns Hopkins University, the number of confirmed cases in the entire world was 507.94 million as of 12:20 PM on April 22. Two days earlier, the number was 506.13 million, suggesting that the number of infected people increased by 1.8 million worldwide in just two days. The number of deaths was also 6.21 million as of April 22, while two days earlier, the number was 6.2 million — more than 7,400 people died just in a couple of days. People’s interest and news value on COVID are declining in Japan as the domestic infection situation calmed down, but still, the situation continues to be a very serious concern for the world.
As myself being in the center of biotech-focused media, I strongly feel that during these 2 years under the coronavirus disaster, we really got to acknowledge the power of biotechnology. PCR or antigen tests to determine infection status, drugs to save the lives of those infected, and vaccines that are indispensable to recover to our normal work and life — are all based on biotechnology. Thus, if mankind did not have biotechnology, we might not have been able to overcome this new virus. That is how critical it is.
A big change in the healthcare industry over the last two years
I would like to start by introducing the financial performance of the healthcare companies over the past two years.
