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The business outlook for medical-device companies is clearly improving. The danger to their stock prices hasn’t gone away, though. Second-quarter results from health-care bellwethers Johnson & Johnson and Abbott Laboratories on Thursday were stronger than Wall Street expected. J&J raised its 2020 profit outlook, while Abbott issued better guidance than analysts were expecting.  Shares of both are near records, as is a broad index of smaller device companies. A key reason for investor optimism is evidence that a device recovery is underway. (Grant, 7/19)

A viral tsunami slammed Michigan in mid-March, flooding metro Detroit hospitals with critically ill coronavirus patients, revealing cracks and weaknesses in public health and forcing rapid change to adapt to the stress of a pandemic. Practically overnight, intensive care units filled up. And out of necessity, experts say, the virus may have driven change within the health care system faster than ever seen before. (Shamus, 7/20)

The coronavirus is not the flu. But the two viruses have something crucial in common: Both have been described as spreading primarily through close contact with symptomatic people or the surfaces they’ve touched. Mounting evidence may be starting to turn the tide on that message. Last week, the World Health Organization modified its stance on coronavirus transmission, acknowledging that the virus may also hop from person to person by lingering in the air, trapped inside tiny aerosols that can traverse the length of room. (Wu, 7/14)