Scientist at the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in Atlanta, GA are currently developing and testing new treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus. What kind of research are they conducting?

Applied research

Explanation:

The process of developing a new vaccine involves the use of known scientific theories to address specific problems. Here, the outcome of several basic research are put into use to arrive at a targeted outcome. This outcome/product can be continuously modified (if it shows early promise) until the desired effect is achieved and if no "promise" is discovered at critical points of this research, work on this theory (for this research) is suspended another theory is pursued.

This process (described above) in which scientists continuously develop new treatments and/or vaccines and continuously subject it to testing until the desired effect is achieved can be referred to as Applied research.

alkaline metals are lithium, sodium, rubidium, potassium, cesium and francium.

alkali metals have electronegativity from 0.7 to 1, lowest in periodic table of elements, which means that alkali metals (i group in periodic table) has positive oxidation number in compounds.

electronegativity is a chemical property that describes the tendency of an atom to attract a shared pair of electrons towards itself.

alkaline metals (far left in main group) have lowest ionizations energy and easy remove valence electrons,

for example, potassium is the alkali metal and has a single valence electron in the outer electron shell.

electron configuration of potassium is: ₁₉k 1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁶4s¹.

they can not exist alone in nature, because they are very reactive.