The Hustle - Puff, puff… pandemic?

Put this in your pipe and smoke it: The cure to COVID-19 could come from the same stuff that fills up a Camel cigarette.

Yes, we’re serious (and no... we haven’t been smoking anything).

British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris -- the world’s 2 largest tobacco giants -- have begun developing coronavirus vaccines out of tobacco leaves.

It may sound ironic… 

Especially because early studies link smoking and vaping with an increased risk of severe coronavirus infection. But units of BAT and Philip Morris actually have experience in biopharma tech. 

Here’s what they’re working on:

• Kentucky BioProcessing, owned by BAT, cloned part of COVID-19’s genetic sequence to create antigens (substances that jump-start the body's immune response to the virus), and now it’s inserting them into tobacco plants so they can be used to create a vaccine.
• Medicago, part-owned by Philip Morris, is growing virus-like particles in crops related to tobacco to create its own plant-based vaccine.

According to BAT, using tobacco could enable vaccine production in about 6 weeks -- far less time than conventional methods, which take months.

But wait... why do cig-makers have biopharma divisions again?

Hint: It’s not just because Uncle Phil Morris is turning over a new tobacco leaf and focusing on public health...

Instead, Tobacco Titans have been buying biopharma companies since the start of the vaping boom in the early 2010s. Vape nation boomed from 7m people in 2011 to 41m in 2018, but the Trump administration cracked down this year on flavored pods.

BAT bought Kentucky BioProcessing in 2014 not to develop drugs, but for smoking alternatives. Now Big Cig’s biopharma arms are taking a break to fight the pandemic.

And it ain’t the first time they’ve swapped cigs for safety masks 

In 2014 -- the year it was acquired by BAT -- Kentucky BioProcessing was involved in developing a drug called ZMapp that used tobacco leaves to fight the ebola virus.

ZMapp never made it to the market. But this time, BAT hopes its COVID-19 cure will make more of an impact. 

BAT is already running pre-clinical trials and says it could produce 1-3m doses per week by June (if it gets approval); Philip Morris hopes to begin human trials this summer.

Getting ready for your close-up looks a little different these days.

The coronavirus pandemic is forcing network TV stars to trade in high-tech studios and klieg lights for… well, basements and bathtubs.

The show must go on...

...but it can be hard to keep the camera focused. It’s only a matter of time before we get a repeat of one of the funniest live-TV moments in recent memory.

Meantime, on-air personalities are resorting to all sorts of DIY defense tactics to keep up appearances:

• One CNBC correspondent turned a guest room into a makeshift TV studio -- with a sign that tells the kids when it’s safe to enter.
• The Fox News anchor Dana Perino distracted her dog with a jar of PB.

But sometimes, TVFH goes off script

Last weekend, another Fox News anchor -- Janine Pirro -- went live with her first from-home broadcast. Her on-camera mannerisms were so weird that the internet speculated she’d had a few too many before the cameras started rolling.

Pirro and the network blamed technical difficulties -- and Pirro herself told one critic to “Keep hating. U wear it well.”

Viewers don’t seem to mind a little static

Fox News just reported its biggest ratings quarter ever. 

ABC’s “World News Tonight” was the top-rated show in the US 3 out of 4 weeks in March, averaging ~11m viewers a night. And CNN -- whose anchor Chris Cuomo is dealing with  a COVID-19 diagnosis himself -- doubled its March viewership from last year.

Guess we can’t watch Netflix 24/7, right? On second thought… don’t answer that.

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We are all Andre Fuller.

A few days before his recent wedding, the Missouri man had never heard of a certain (suddenly surging) video conferencing tool.

“I thought that Zoom was a song by Lionel Richie," Fuller told KMOV (it’s by The Commodores, so he’s basically right). “I Googled it and I looked it up. This is Zoom, OK.”

Fuller’s pastor officiated his ceremony virtually, so now, he’ll probably never forget the Zoom we’ve grown used to. The coronavirus pandemic may have thrown the wedding industry’s bouquet out the window, but Fuller definitely isn’t alone.

They’re bucking the wedding-biz breakup

The $54B industry is hurting big time thanks to the rise of social distancing. Last year, the average big day attracted 125 guests -- definitely a no-no at this point. 

One expert estimated that 57% of couples are either canceling, trying to punt until later this year, or shooting for 2021. (Save the date cards are now “change the date” cards, natch.)

But some people are saying their vows now -- with a little quick thinking and socially distant help. As CityLab discovered:

• One North Carolina couple got hitched at a jail (no judges left at the nearest courthouse).
• A couple in Israel staged their ceremony in a courtyard, with guests looking on from balconies above.

Companies are still eyeing a slice of the wedding cake, too.

‘I do’ is now ‘I Zoom’

The online wedding planners at Wedfuly coupled up with Zoom to offer virtual ceremonies. Wedfuly says it will run the whole show -- including "muting, unmuting and cueing guests to cheer and clap."

Brides magazine said the first Wedfuly/Zoom ceremony went down last Saturday. The bride walked down the aisle with a cardboard cutout of the officiant -- her dad.

It’s obviously bad for business when demand dries up -- just ask the bars, caterers, barbershops, and thousands of other businesses that have been forced to close their doors.

But businesses seeing spikes in demand are finding that the surge doesn’t necessarily mean higher profits.

During a pandemic, success can be expensive

Delivery companies, online retailers, and social-media companies are all seeing increasing demand -- but also lower margins and rising costs:

Shipping companies like Fedex and UPS saw a 7.2% increase in low-margin residential deliveries, but a 3% decrease in profitable B2B deliveries through the first 3 weeks of March, with even sharper declines in the forecast. They may have to lay off workers.

Twitter’s daily usage has increased 23% this year, but ad revenue declined 20% as advertisers started to cut their budgets.

Zoom added more users in the first 3 months of this year (2.2m) than it did all of last year (1.9m), but privacy concerns have sparked widespread criticism.

Target saw sales of low-margin products like toilet paper increase, while sales of high-margin products flatlined. Target’s sales rose 20% in March, but the company expects its gross margin to fall through the quarter.

Big newspapers like The Boston Globe saw traffic spike up to 140%, but expect ad revenue to drop. Local newspapers had it worse: Gannett’s digital subscriptions increased 72% in a week... but its stock is down 80% since February.