The Premonition: A Pandemic Story Highlight

The thing to do, Joe decided, was to transform the Biohub into a COVID-19 testing center as quickly as possible—and publish a paper to show others how to do it. Governor Newsom agreed to issue an executive order to allow people to work in a clinical lab who were not certified to do it. (“We were afraid we were going to get our asses sued,” said Joe.) And the Biohub put out an APB for volunteers. What happened next would have astonished lots of people, but not Joe. A small army of graduate students and postdocs, mostly from UCSF, rushed to help. “They came in droves,” said Joe. “And it was always, How can I help? How do I do this? No one asked to be paid.”