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(Reuters) — Johnson & Johnson moved up the start of human clinical trials for its experimental vaccine against the highly contagious coronavirus by two months to the second half of July, as the drugmaker rushes to develop a prevention for COVID-19, the company said on Wednesday.

The acceleration should allow J&J to take part in the massive clinical trials program planned by the U.S. government, which aims to have an effective vaccine by year end.

J&J shares rose nearly 2% to $148.69.

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On Friday, I reported on the data released from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, indicating that 2.5 million jobs were added in May. This was followed by an enthusiastic take on how the United States may be turning the corner. Despite all of the negatives, it seemed the U.S. was seeing rays of hope. The stock market, which has shot up since the initial shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic, bolted up after the report, gaining over 700 points and referred to other positive developments.

Unfortunately, after delving into the footnotes of the numbers, it now looks like the jobs report has been inaccurate for the last two months. BLS has admitted that government household survey takers mistakenly counted about 4.9 million people as employed, although they were unemployed.

Had the mistake been corrected, the unemployment rate would have risen to 16.1% in May. The corrected April figure would have been more than 19.5% —rather than 14.7%.

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“Business closures and social distancing measures are expected to curtail consumer spending, while the recent drop in energy prices is projected to severely reduce U.S. investment in the energy sector,” said the CBO in the report, a letter in response to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Read more: GOLDMAN SACHS: Buy these 25 beaten-down stocks all poised to jump more than 18% from current levels

The roughly $3.3 trillion in stimulus provided by Congress in recent months will only “partially mitigate the deterioration in economic conditions,” the federal agency said.

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“The state government should consider managing the invasive population of spotted-thighed frogs at Streaky Bay. This should include education programs to inform people about what to do if they find a frog, as well as the feasibility of exterminating the population in South Australia.

“Importantly, if you do see one of these critters in your travels – leave it be. We don’t want it hitchhiking any further.”

Reference: ” Indiscriminate feeding by an alien population of the spotted-thighed frog (Litoria cyclorhyncha) in southern Australia and potential impacts on native biodiversity” by Christine M. Taylor, Gunnar Keppel, Shaun O’Sullivan, Stefan Peters, Gregory D. Kerr and Craig R. Williams, 9 April 2020, Australian Journal of Zoology. DOI: 10.1071/ZO19042

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The president also ordered a boost in the education of specialists in genetics and genome sequencing and the domestic production of necessary laboratory equipment, as well as tax cuts for biomedical research. Russia will also open world-class genome research centers which will, among their immediate goals, work on the development of treatments and vaccines for Covid-19.

The future database will be one of the tools that Russia hopes to use to assume a leading position in the biomedical industry. The government sees it as crucial for keeping the country competitive on the world stage going forward.

The Kurchatov Institute, which is best known for nuclear research, has been tasked with laying the foundation for the database, choosing the storage format and making tools for search and analysis. The institute has experience in the secure handling of large amounts of sensitive data and operates a number of data centers across Russia which are used for scientific collaboration projects.

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IBM will no longer offer general purpose facial recognition or analysis software, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a letter to Congress today. The company will also no longer develop or research the technology, IBM tells The Verge. Krishna addressed the letter to Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Reps. Karen Bass (D-CA), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

“IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any [facial recognition] technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency,” Krishna said in the letter. “We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies.”

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HAVANA HAVANA (Reuters) — Communist-run Cuba said this week that use of two drugs produced by its biotech industry that reduce hyper-inflammation in seriously ill COVID-19 patients has sharply curbed its coronavirus-related death toll.

Health authorities have reported just two virus-related deaths over the past nine days among more than 200 active cases on the Caribbean’s largest island, a sign they may have the worst of the outbreak under control.

The government, which hopes to increase its biopharmaceutical exports, has touted various drugs it produces for helping prevent infection with the new coronavirus and treating the COVID-19 disease it causes.

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Like all countries, China is facing severe economic losses from the pandemic, and that will certainly have a negative impact on scientific research, because funding will be reduced and projects will be delayed, says physicist Wang Yifang, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing. Some universities have already announced a cut in funding. The research budget given by the education ministry to Jiangnan University in Wuxi, for example, will drop by more than 25% for 2020, and other universities are facing similar reductions. “An overall budget cutting of government spending on higher education is highly possible, though the level and scope may vary by regions, universities and fields,” says Tang Li, a science-policy scientist at Fudan University in Shanghai.

The country is rapidly gaining on the United States in research, but problems could slow its rise: part 5 in a series on science after the pandemic.

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