(JNS) Venture-capital fund Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP) hosted a virtual confer-ence on Tuesday, March 24, gathering global government, economic and tech lead-ers, as well as Israeli and Italian hospital heads and experts, to share best practices on combating the COVID-19 crisis. During the meeting, titled “Corona Wake Up Call,” ex-perts shared best practices and methods for using innovation in diagnostics, preven-tion and treatment of the coronavirus. Participants issued a call for proactive synergy among governments and world leaders, including the sharing of data across the globe.

Israel Institute of Biological Research expert Eran Zehavy reported “very encouraging results” in the search for a vaccine. Dr. Galia Barkai of Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer in Ramat Gan explained how the medical center is harnessing technology “to build a facility with minimal physical contact.”

Executive vice president of the industry and innovation group at New York City’s Eco-nomic Development Corporation Lindsay Clinton outlined the situation in New York. “Our priorities are identifying additional hospital and medical space, identifying addi-tional availability of medical supplies and additional staff,” she said, also describing efforts to develop a local ecosystem of decentralized production for face masks, isola-tion gowns and ventilators.

Dr. Nirav R. Shah of Stanford University called for “21st-century tools” to combat the virus. “We need to do what Twitter did to the news cycle: Make it real time and demo-cratic” so that medical solutions are more widely available and impactful.

The meeting marked the first of a series of virtual events, part of an international online ecosystem that Margalit hopes to continue throughout the fight against COVID-19.

Main Photo: Fake blood is seen in test tubes labelled with the coronavirus (COVID-19) in this illustration taken March 17, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration.