New Covid vaccines are coming out. The CDC wants you to get one

Everyone over 6 months should get a new shot, according to the CDC. Should we expect this every year?

 Should you pick Novavax’s COVID-19 shot over mRNA options?

Limited data and lack of head-to-head studies make comparisons tricky

A mildly insane idea for disabling the coronavirus

What happens when you set biotechnologists loose without any practicality limits?

COVID-19 Cases Are Dropping Fast. Why?

Four reasons: social distancing, seasonality, seroprevalence, and shots.

Covid-19: When are you most infectious?

To understand when people with Covid-19 are most likely to be infectious, our team conducted a study which was recently published in The Lancet Microbe.

Flu vs. Covid: Ways to Identify Symptoms and Differences

Flu and other seasonal ailments share symptoms with Covid. But there are some ways to help determine what’s wrong.

Holiday Gatherings During COVID-19: What Doctors Say About Traveling and Family Events

While there is nothing that can completely eliminate the risk if people chose to celebrate the holidays with others, the good news is that there are ways of making a gathering safer.

How COVID-19 Attacks The Brain And May Cause Lasting Damage

Many patients who are hospitalized for COVID-19 are discharged with symptoms such as those associated with a brain injury. But COVID-19 also appears to produce many other brain-related symptoms ranging from seizures to psychosis, a team reports in the Jan. 5 issue of the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia. The team, which included de Erausquin, says severe COVID-19 may even increase a person's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

How Science Beat the Virus

And what it lost in the process.

Research shows conversation quickly spreads droplets more than six feet inside buildings

With implications for the transmission of diseases like COVID-19, researchers have found that ordinary conversation creates a conical, “jet-like” airflow that quickly carries a spray of tiny droplets from a speaker’s mouth across meters of an interior space.

What to do if someone in your house has COVID-19

COVID-19 has a transmission rate of 53 per cent once it makes through the front door of your home. Here's how to prepare.

What you need to know about the new variant of coronavirus in the UK

Many countries have closed their borders to people leaving the UK due to the rapid spread within the country of a new variant of the coronavirus that might be more transmissible. Meanwhile, South Africa is also reporting the spread of another new variant. Here’s what you need to know.

Why new coronavirus variants 'suddenly arose' in the U.K. and South Africa

Some researchers suspect chronic cases allow the virus to replicate over long periods of time and that certain new therapies may encourage it to mutate.

Why Some Experts Say Humidifiers Could Help Against Covid-19

Your warm, dry home can be a hotbed for Covid-19 infections, but is a humidifier helpful and safe?

You can survive winter and not spread Covid-19. Here’s how.

Experts on safer (and riskier) ways to see friends and family, keep kids busy, and give back — in a raging pandemic.

4 reasons we’re seeing these worrying coronavirus variants now

Covid-19 is evolving. Why now?

The 13 Biggest Lessons We've Learned About The Coronavirus So Far

No one was prepared for the coronavirus pandemic. The public certainly wasn’t. The US government wasn’t. Even the public health experts who had spent their entire careers anxiously preparing for a pandemic weren’t, in part because the basic mechanics of the coronavirus now known as SARS-CoV-2 defied expectations.

The coronavirus at 1: A year into the pandemic, what scientists know about how it spreads, infects, and sickens

The coronavirus behind the pandemic presents some vexing dualities. It’s dangerous enough that it dispatches patients to hospitals in droves and has killed more than 1.6 million people, but mild enough that most people shrug it off.

The Future of the Coronavirus? An Annoying Childhood Infection

Once immunity is widespread in adults, the virus rampaging across the world will come to resemble the common cold, scientists predict.

We are Sick, We Are Here, And We Need Help

Inside a Covid-19 support group, where a long-haul future is faced head-on.

' Really Diabolical’: Inside the Coronavirus That Outsmarted Science

SARS-CoV-2 is a wily virus, with mysterious origins and a powerful ability to infect and spread; ‘We underestimated it.’

'All You Want Is To Be Believed': Sick With COVID-19 And Facing Racial Bias In The ER

Her experiences in the medical system, she reasons, are part of why people of color are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. She says it is not just because they're more likely to have front-line jobs that expose them to the virus, and the underlying health conditions that can lead to a more serious COVID-19 infection. "That is certainly part of it, but the other part is the lack of value people see in our lives," Monterroso wrote in a Twitter thread detailing her experience.

A Guide to Staying Safe as States Reopen

Can I eat at a restaurant? Can I go shopping? Can I hug my friends again? Experts weigh in.

A SARS-like virus is spreading quickly. Here’s what you need to know

With information about 2019-nCoV — and its risk of spreading — evolving by the hour, we’ve answered basic questions about the outbreak here. We’ll be updating this story as more information becomes available.

A Virus With a Deadly Boring Name

2019-nCoV isn't going to cut it long term.

AI is about to face a major test: Can it differentiate Covid-19 from flu?

Can they help doctors differentiate between the two respiratory illnesses, and accurately predict which patients will become severely ill?

America’s uniquely bad Covid-19 epidemic, explained in 18 maps and charts

The US’s coronavirus epidemic is among the worst. Here’s what you need to know.

An expert guide to love and sex during a pandemic

Self-quarantine as a single person or a person who lives far from their significant other can be pretty lonely, especially while other folks spend their work-from-home hours snuggled up with the person they love. Still, it can be unnerving to be so close to someone who might’ve bumped into COVID-19 in the outside world. Considering it takes at least five days for the virus’s symptoms to show up, it’s tough to know if your spooning partner is infected, or if you could be putting them at risk.

Bradykinin and the Coronavirus

There’s a new paper that a lot of people are talking about recently that presents a rather large unifying hypothesis about the effects of the coronavirus (and suggests some new modes of treatment as well). This is the “bradykinin hypothesis”, and before digging into it, t’s a 9-amino-acid peptide, and it’s got a ton of biological activity it might be worth a paragraph to talk about what bradykinin is.

Can Air Conditioners Spread COVID-19?

In fact, other infectious diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, chickenpox, influenza, smallpox and SARS have all been shown to spread through heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

Can wearing a face mask protect you from the new coronavirus?

No, a regular surgical mask will not help you steer clear of the virus.

Clots, Strokes And Rashes. Is COVID-19 A Disease Of The Blood Vessels?

Whether it's strange rashes on the toes or blood clots in the brain, the widespread ravages of COVID-19 have increasingly led researchers to focus on how the novel coronavirus sabotages the body's blood vessels.

Coronavirus and sex: Dos and don'ts during social distancing

Given the common modes of transmission of respiratory viruses, engaging in certain types of sexual activities may risk spreading the virus. However, expecting people to abstain from sex during times of isolation is unrealistic.

Coronavirus FAQs: Convertibles, Dishwashing, Dog's Paws, Bowling, Travel With Kids

They may not be the most critical health questions. Yet they are definitely interesting.

Coronavirus Hijacks the Body From Head to Toe, Perplexing Doctors

More than a respiratory infection, Covid-19 wreaks havoc on many organs; inflammation and abnormal blood clotting are likely culprits.

Coronavirus Infections Expanding at a Growing Rate

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has promised drastic measures to contain the virus. The national government on Sunday banned the wildlife trade until the epidemic passes. The outbreak had drawn fresh attention to China’s animal markets, where the sale of exotic creatures has been linked to epidemiological risks.

Coronavirus is hundreds of times more deadly for people over 60 than people under 40

For COVID–19, like most diseases, the worse your health before you get infected, the worse your chances of fighting off the virus. Researchers know that certain chronic diseases – including cardiovascular, kidney, and lung diseases, as well as diabetes – all increase one’s risk of death from COVID-19.

Coronavirus Scare Gives Telehealth an Opening to Redefine Healthcare

With the coronavirus threatening to become a pandemic, health systems and telehealth vendors see this as an opportunity to bring connected health to the forefront - and reshape the future of healthcare.

Coronavirus while pregnant or giving birth: here’s what you need to know

Pregnant women are generally more susceptible to viruses that cause breathing problems (like the flu). Their immunity is lowered, their lungs are more compressed and they need more oxygen. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case with COVID-19. In an analysis of 147 women with COVID-19, only 8% had severe disease and 1% were in critical condition. That’s lower than the general population.

Coronavirus: 'Baffling' observations from the front line

Most people infected with the coronavirus have only mild symptoms, or sometimes none at all. But in many thousands of patients who fall critically ill, Covid-19 is a disease of alarming complexity. What follows is a summary, often in their own words, of what doctors have learnt about how Covid-19 attacks the human body, and what they still need to know.

Coronavirus: many patients reporting neurological symptoms

As case numbers of COVID-19 continue to rise around the world, we are starting to see an increasing number of reports of neurological symptoms. Some studies report that over a third of patients show neurological symptoms.

Coronavirus: The mystery of 'silent spreaders'

As the crisis has unfolded, scientists have discovered more evidence about a strange and worrying feature of the coronavirus. While many people who become infected develop a cough, fever and loss of taste and smell, others have no symptoms at all and never realise they're carrying Covid-19.

COVID-19 Can Last for Several Months

The disease’s “long-haulers” have endured relentless waves of debilitating symptoms—and disbelief from doctors and friends.

COVID-19 Has Stolen My 20s

This was supposed to be a time to try new things and find out where I’m supposed to be.

Covid-19 is way, way worse than the flu

It’s more contagious, deadlier, sneakier, and more likely to cause chaos.

COVID-19 May Never Go Away — With Or Without A Vaccine

Humans have never been particularly good at eradicating entire viruses, and COVID-19 might not be any different.

Covid-19 Measures Have All but Wiped Out the Flu in the Southern Hemisphere

From Chile to South Africa to New Zealand, countries report far lower numbers of influenza cases, which could be good news for the U.S. and Europe.

COVID-19 transmission—up in the air

During the initial stages of the pandemic there was concern about surface transmission. However, latest research suggests that this is unlikely to be a major route of transmission as although SARS-CoV-2 can persist for days on inanimate surfaces, attempts to culture the virus from these surfaces were unsuccessful.

Covid: Why is coronavirus so deadly?

In stark terms, "the virus doesn't care" if you die, says Prof Lehner, "this is a hit and run virus". A simple virus has brought life as we know it to a screeching halt. We have faced viral threats before, including pandemics, yet the world does not shut down for every new infection or flu season. So what is it about this coronavirus? What are the quirks of its biology that pose a unique threat to our bodies and our lives?

Cytokine storms are the most disturbing COVID-19 symptom yet

There are so many perplexing questions about COVID-19 but the one that seems to stump everyone is why some people are dropping dead when they get this virus and others are completely asymptomatic.

Did a Mutation Turbocharge the Coronavirus? Not Likely, Scientists Say

A preliminary report posted online claimed that a mutation had made the virus more transmissible. Geneticists say the evidence isn’t there.

Dispatch From an American Nurse on the Frontlines of the Effort to Contain Coronavirus

Every healthcare worker should know, and sadly there are probably many that don’t, that PPE gear isn’t used this way. The masks they want us to place on the patient are loose fitting. The air patients breathe out will just go out the sides of the mask. If a patient is already infected, these masks will do next to nothing to prevent an airborne virus.

Doctors and Patients Turn to Telemedicine in the Coronavirus Outbreak

The use of virtual visits climbs as a way of safely treating patients and containing spread of the infection at hospitals, clinics and medical offices.

Doctors Begin to Crack Covid’s Mysterious Long-Term Effects

Severe fatigue, memory lapses, heart problems affect patients who weren’t that badly hit initially; ‘It’s been so long’.

Don’t Fall for These Myths About Coronavirus

Misconceptions about what can protect you are becoming just as contagious as the virus.

Everything you need to know about the coronavirus, from face masks to travel risks

Give it to me straight. Is it time to panic? No. (Is that straightforward enough?)

Experts think the Wuhan coronavirus jumped from bats to snakes to people

Bats harbor a significantly higher proportion of zoonotic viruses than other mammals, according to a 2017 study. Experts think that's because bats can fly across large geographical ranges, transporting diseases as they go. That makes them an ideal host.

FlattenToZero.org

You van help end the pandemic in 30 days.

From Camping To Dining Out: Here's How Experts Rate The Risks Of 14 Summer Activities

We asked a panel of infectious disease and public health experts to rate the risk of summer activities, from backyard gatherings, to a day at the pool, to sharing a vacation house with another household. One big warning: Your personal risk depends on your age and health, the prevalence of the virus in your area, and the precautions you take during any of these activities.

From Loss Of Smell To 'COVID Toes': What Experts Are Learning About Symptoms

We're getting a "better understanding of how these symptoms express in the general population and not necessarily in hospitalized patients, which is whom most of the earlier studies from China looked at. "So it's a bit of a bigger picture," says Charitini Stavropoulou...

Health care workers are at high risk of catching COVID-19

“Most countries lack sufficient PPE to respond to a large scale event,” Rebmann says. “That puts health care workers at risk.”

Here’s Exactly How the New Coronavirus Affects Your Body

How is nCoV different from a regular Pneumonia? There is a spectrum of clinical presentations of nCoV which can be mild, moderate, or severe illnesses. This includes pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome (severe condition that fills-up the lungs with fluid and could cause organ failure), sepsis (bacterial infection in blood), and septic shock (organ failure caused by sepsis). Pneumonia is just one of the presentations of nCoV.

How Covid-19 is altering the course of science for years to come

Faced with a global pandemic, scientists are redirecting their research and redeploying their resources at a pace never seen before.

How exactly do we spread droplets as we talk? Engineers found out

For the first time, researchers have directly visualized how speaking produces and expels droplets of saliva into the air. The smallest droplets can be inhaled by other people and are a primary way that respiratory infections like COVID-19 spread from person to person.

How Long Does It Take To Recover From COVID-19 Coronavirus And Return To Work?

You are not a Hot Pocket, at least in one way. When you get infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus, you can’t just set a timer to then determine when exactly you will be ready. In this case, ready means fully recovered and ready to return to your normal activities, whatever “normal activities” happen to be these days with the pandemic.

How Not to Get Sick While Traveling

Do masks work? It depends. Health professionals offer some tips on how to stay healthy while on the move.

How the Swiss Cheese Model Can Help Us Beat Covid-19

No single solution will stop the virus’s spread, but combining different layers of public measures and personal actions can make a big difference.

How to Misinform Yourself About the Coronavirus

Even if you avoid the conspiracy theories, tweeting through a global emergency is messy, context-free, and disorienting.

How We Can Stop the Spread of COVID-19 By Christmas

Widespread and frequent rapid antigen testing (public health screening to suppress outbreaks) is the best possible tool we have at our disposal today—and we are not using it.

How We Cope with Coronavirus

Dispatches from the pandemic

How Worried Should You Be About the New Coronavirus?

Don’t panic about yourself. Do be concerned about global health.

If You've Just Had Covid, Exercise Might Not Be Good for You

A growing number of studies are raising concerns about the coronavirus’ long-term effects on the heart. Athletes especially need to heed the warnings.

Is It Safe To Dine Indoors — Or Outdoors?

When we asked our sources if they planned to dine inside a restaurant at any time, both answered: not in the near future. They do feel more comfortable with outdoor dining — although they both said they're putting it off for now because of fears of transmission.

Is the Virus on My Clothes? My Shoes? My Hair? My Newspaper?

We asked the experts to answer questions about all the places coronavirus lurks (or doesn’t). You’ll feel better after reading this.

It’s Time to Talk About Covid-19 and Surfaces Again

In the early days, we furiously scrubbed, afraid we could get sick from the virus lingering on objects and surfaces. What do we know now?

Kids Can Get Covid-19. They Just Don't Get That Sick

New data suggests that children aren’t immune to the new coronavirus. That could have huge implications for efforts to contain local outbreaks.

Long after the fire of a Covid-19 infection, mental and neurological effects can still smolder

Early on, patients with both mild and severe Covid-19 say they can’t breathe. Now, after recovering from the infection, some of them say they can’t think. Even people who were never sick enough to go to a hospital, much less lie in an ICU bed with a ventilator, report feeling something as ill-defined as “Covid fog” or as frightening as numbed limbs. They’re unable to carry on with their lives, exhausted by crossing the street, fumbling for words, or laid low by depression, anxiety, or PTSD.

Monster or Machine? A Profile of the Coronavirus at 6 Months

Our “hidden enemy,” in plain sight.

Most people dying from Covid-19 are old. Don’t treat them just as statistics.

My grandfather’s time was not up. His death should be treated as the tragedy it is.

New Data Suggest the Coronavirus Isn’t as Deadly as We Thought

A study finds 50 to 85 times as many infections as known cases—meaning a far lower fatality rate.

No, You Did Not Get COVID-19 in the Fall of 2019

Let’s start with the facts. I reached out to Stanford Medicine to try to understand the goals of its antibody test, and how it relates to Hanson’s fall 2019 theory. The short answer on the latter is that it doesn’t. “Our research does not suggest that the virus was here that early,” says Lisa Kim of Stanford’s media relations team. Neither does anyone else’s, it appears. “There is zero probability [SARS-CoV-2] was circulating in fall 2019,” tweeted Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who has been tracking SARS-CoV-2’s genetic code as it has spread.

Novel Coronavirus 2019 (2019-nCoV): What You Need to Know

IDSA is keeping members and the public up to date on the latest novel coronavirus -- 2019-nCoV --developments with this resource page providing links to guidance from government health authorities and the World Health Organization, journal articles and more.

President Trump's COVID-19 Treatment Is Already Unique. Here's What Doctors May Do Next

How the President of the United States is treated for COVID-19 will likely be very different from how the 7 million-plus other Americans who have contracted the disease were taken care of, at least in some ways. To start, before Trump was hospitalized, his physician Sean Conley revealed that the President received an experimental drug duo from Regeneron of so-called monoclonal antibodies.

Quercetin: New Hype for COVID-19?

Parallels drawn with early data on hydroxychloroquine.

Rethinking Covid-19 in Children

There is new evidence that some children may become very sick, and we are beginning to learn more about who may be most at risk and what parents need to watch for.

Scientists are reporting several cases of Covid-19 reinfection — but the implications are complicated

Immunologists had expected that if the immune response generated after an initial infection could not prevent a second case, then it should at least stave off more severe illness.

Scientists Have Uncovered the Likely Cause of a Serious COVID-19 Symptom: Blood Clotting

In their latest Science paper, the researchers found that the autoantibodies drive this cycle of inflammation and clotting. The autoantibodies found in the COVID-19 patients are the same ones doctors find in patients with an autoimmune disease called antiphospholipid syndrome, in which antibodies seed clots by attracting clotting factors that eventually block blood flow.

Seven months later, what we know about Covid-19 — and the pressing questions that remain

The “before times” seem like a decade ago, don’t they? Those carefree days when hugging friends and shaking hands wasn’t verboten, when we didn’t have to reach for a mask before leaving our homes, or forage for supplies of hand sanitizer. Oh, for the days when social distancing wasn’t part of our vernacular.

Should we be worried about the new Wuhan coronavirus?

China was extraordinarily efficient and open in identifying the virus, a new strain of coronavirus, within just over a week. Chinese scientists sequenced the virus’s genetic code and, within days, shared that information with the world.

Six Months of Coronavirus: Here’s Some of What We’ve Learned

Much remains unknown and mysterious, but these are some of the things we’re pretty sure of after half a year of this pandemic.

Smart Travel Planning in the Time of Coronavirus

What you need to know to assess the pros, cons and potential complications of a trip far from home.

So, What Can We Do Now?

A guide to staying safe this summer

Studies Point To Big Drop In COVID-19 Death Rates

So have death rates dropped because of improvements in treatments? Or is it because of the change in who's getting sick?

Suffering From Covid for Months—and Battling Murky Test Results Too

Doctors believe many people are fighting Covid symptoms long-term, but testing inconsistencies complicate the picture

The Coronavirus Is Never Going Away

No matter what happens now, the virus will continue to circulate around the world.

The coronavirus might show up in your semen, but don’t panic

A small study found coronavirus in semen—but this doesn’t necessarily mean the virus can be sexually transmitted.

The Fear of the Coronavirus, and the Reality of the Flu

The fact is, influenza is an illness that is far more deadly but also far more familiar to us. The current coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China, serves as a surrogate for a good deal of xenophobia and fear of the country itself.

The Many Symptoms of Covid-19

From a sniffle or cough that feels like allergies to severe body aches and crippling fatigue, the symptoms of coronavirus can be unpredictable from head to toe.

The New Coronavirus Is a Truly Modern Epidemic

New diseases are mirrors that reflect how a society works—and where it fails.

The Treatment That Could Crush Covid

Early trials show signaling cells eliminate the virus, calm the immune response and repair tissue damage.

The virus that causes COVID-19 has been silently brewing in bats for decades

The viral lineage leading to SARS-CoV-2 has likely been around for the past 40 to 70 years in bats.

This theory might explain “Covid toes” and other mysteries of the disease

Bradykinin storms are the hottest new hypothesis for why Covid-19 can wreak havoc on the body.

Three Months In, These Patients Are Still Ravaged by Covid’s Fallout

Doctors don’t believe these people are contagious months after infection. In a few cases, patients do still test positive for the disease, but doctors think those tests are likely picking up dead traces of virus.

Watch: It’s not just the lungs: The Covid-19 virus attacks like no other ‘respiratory’ infection

“For many diseases, it can take years before we fully characterize the different ways that it affects people,” said nephrologist Dan Negoianu of Penn Medicine. “Even now, we are still very early in the process of understanding this disease.”

What A Summer Of COVID-19 Taught Scientists About Indoor vs. Outdoor Transmission

And if there is one thing we can definitively state, it’s that this virus is much, much less likely to spread outdoors than in.

What immunity to Covid-19 might actually mean

Your immune system is like a beautifully complex orchestra. It plays two movements.

What Is The Cytokine Storm And Why Is It So Deadly For Coronavirus Patients?

When we get sick we trust our immune system to protect us, but what happens when that system goes awry and ends up killing patients? COVID-19 is shedding new light on how viruses can kick some patient’s immune system into overdrive to deadly effect in what is known as a cytokine storm syndrome.

What pregnant people need to know about COVID-19

For now, there are more questions than answers.

What to know about the coronavirus

Coronaviruses are a relatively broad family of viruses named for the spikes that come out of a virus particle. Under a microscope, they look like a crown, or a halo — like the sun’s corona.

What to Put in a Covid-19 Emergency Home-Care Kit

Most people who get sick from the coronavirus won’t be going to the hospital. Here’s what doctors say you need to be ready at home.

What’s the Risk of Catching Coronavirus From a Surface?

Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen.

Why Covid-19 is so dangerous for older adults

Older people and people with chronic illness are at greater risk, and how we respond to the threat affects everyone.

Why COVID-19 kills some people and spares others. Here's what scientists are finding.

The novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 seems to hit some people harder than others, with some people experiencing only mild symptoms and others being hospitalized and requiring ventilation. Though scientists at first thought age was the dominant factor, with young people avoiding the worst outcomes, new research has revealed a suite of features impacting disease severity.

Why do some people with coronavirus get symptoms while others don’t?

But some people don’t even get symptoms. Recent studies suggest as many as 80% or more of those infected are “silent carriers”, showing no or very mild symptoms. It seems children and young, healthy people are more likely to be asymptomatic.

Why people are volunteering to get Covid-19

A controversial plan could get us a vaccine sooner.

Why Some People Get Sicker Than Others

COVID-19 is proving to be a disease of the immune system. This could, in theory, be controlled.

Why the Coronavirus Hits Kids and Adults So Differently

COVID-19 is much less severe in children, and it could have to do with a child’s still-developing immune system.

Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing

A guide to making sense of a problem that is now too big for any one person to fully comprehend.

You Tested Positive for Covid-19. Now What?

Doctors answer questions about quarantining, getting the vaccine and resuming daily activities.

Could My Symptoms Be Covid-19?

These days, every cough, sneeze or headache makes you wonder: Could it be Covid-19? Medical experts are viewing Covid-19 as a multi-organ disease that can affect the body from head to toe and everywhere in between. Here’s a guide to help you understand the symptoms.

COVID Is a Vibe

But however simply we want the pandemic to speak to us, invariably it speaks instead in tongues, inviting interpretation and contestation — some of it partisan, some of it principled, some of it self-interested.

How Soon Will Covid be Normal?

Even as the Omicron wave spikes, some outside experts believe that the time has come for Anthony Fauci and the White House to declare a new phase in the pandemic.

New Zealand has managed to dodge the COVID-19 bullet, again. Here’s why

New Zealand has avoided community transmission, even though an Australian visitor tested positive for the delta variant which dominates Australia’s latest COVID-19 outbreaks.

US experts question whether counting Covid cases is still the right approach

Case counts ‘don’t reflect what they used to’, experts argue, as data suggests Omicron is less severe but more contagious.

Bright side of the moonshots

Covid-19 has brought together biomedical technologies that will transform human health.

Changing nature of Covid: Is it just a regular winter bug now?

Covid is "well on the way" to becoming seasonal, Prof Hunter says, with flu likely to cause more deaths from now on. And eventually, Covid will become "just another cause of the common cold", like the other coronaviruses that circulate.

Covid Prescription: Get the Vaccine, Wait a Month, Return to Normal

The CDC claims to be ‘following the science,’ but its advice suggests it’s still paralyzed by fear.

COVID-19 has tested us. Will we be ready for the next pandemic?

An infectious disease expert with insider access gives his take on what we did well, what we need to fix, and how to prepare for future outbreaks.

Going home for the holidays? Boost, mask, and test beforehand

Steps to take to protect your family from Covid-19, RSV, and flu..

How Will the Coronavirus Evolve?

Delta won’t be the last variant. What will the next ones bring?

Opinion: The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe?

The pandemic is far from over, as evidenced by the rapid rise to global dominance of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2. This variant is a derivative of BA.2.86, the only other strain that has carried more than 30 new mutations in the spike protein since Omicron first came on the scene more than two years ago. This should have warranted designation by the World Health Organization as a variant of concern with a Greek letter, such as Pi.

Scientists Knew More About Covid-19 Than We Think. And They Still Do

In “Breathless,” David Quammen explores the predictable lead-up to the global Covid pandemic, and the frantic, belated attempts to stop it.

This Could Be the Only Way to Beat COVID for Good

The ever-mutating virus always seems to be one step ahead of our best efforts to contain it. But scientists say there’s a way to change that.

Why Covid is still flooring some people

What is it like to catch Covid now? It is a question I have been pondering since a friend was surprised by how roughed up they were by it. Their third bout of Covid was significantly worse than the previous time they caught it.

Why COVID-19 kills some people and spares others. Here's what scientists are finding.

The novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 seems to hit some people harder than others, with some people experiencing only mild symptoms and others being hospitalized and requiring ventilation. Though scientists at first thought age was the dominant factor, with young people avoiding the worst outcomes, new research has revealed a suite of features impacting disease severity. These influences could explain why some perfectly healthy 20-year-old with the disease is in dire straits, while an older 70-year-old dodges the need for critical interventions.

Life Is Worse for Older People Now

A generation of Americans still can’t escape the threat of COVID.

The ubiquity of at-home testing could make the next COVID-19 wave "invisible"

More people may have COVID than official counts suggest. But there's an easy way to figure out if there's a surge.

'It’s not gone. It’s changing. It’s killing': The COVID variants the WHO is watching closely

There are several circulating subvariants of Omicron globally. But what are they and why are we not as concerned as WHO officials about it?

A lucky few seem ‘resistant’ to Covid-19. Scientists want to know why

The question of viral resistance has perplexed Mayana Zatz, a University of São Paulo genetics professor, for years, beginning with exploring the clinical variability of genetic diseases in patients who carried the same pathogenic mutation. She began with neuromuscular disorders like Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and then expanded to exploring why the Zika virus caused severe brain damage in some newborns while others were healthy.

A new COVID vaccine is coming. Will it sway anti-vaxxers?

Experts hope the new COVID vaccine, which uses older biotechnology, could help the unvaccinated come around.

Characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a highly transmissible and pathogenic coronavirus that emerged in late 2019 and has caused a pandemic of acute respiratory disease, named ‘coronavirus disease 2019’ (COVID-19), which threatens human health and public safety. In this Review, we describe the basic virology of SARS-CoV-2, including genomic characteristics and receptor use, highlighting its key difference from previously known coronaviruses.

Coronavirus FAQ: My partner/roommate/kid got COVID. And I didn't. How come?

There is an answer to this question. But it's a bit complicated.

Covid hasn’t given up all its secrets. Here are 6 mysteries experts hope to unravel

... there are still many mysteries about the virus and the pandemic it caused. They range from the technical — what role do autoantibodies play in long Covid? Can a pan-coronavirus vaccine actually be developed? — to the philosophical, such as how can we rebuild trust in our institutions and each other? Debate still festers, too, over the virus’s origins, despite recent studies adding evidence that it spilled over from wildlife.

Covid-19 is likely to fade away in 2022

But the taming of the coronavirus conceals failures in public health

FDA authorizes new test, built with machine learning, to detect past Covid-19 infections

Unlike tests that detect bits of SARS-CoV-2 or antibodies to it, the new test, called T-Detect COVID, looks for signals of past infections in the body’s adaptive immune system — in particular, the T cells that help the body remember what its viral enemies look like. Developed by Seattle-based Adaptive Biotechnologies, it is the first test of its kind.

New Test Can Show If You’ve Had COVID-19, Even If Antibodies Fade

This test could show how many people have really had COVID-19, as well as information on how long immunity lasts and how well vaccines are working. A T cell test for COVID may help provide a retroactive diagnosis for people who may be suffering the long-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 — and with it, a sense of clarity and closure.

Relationship between blood type and outcomes following COVID-19 infection

At this point in time, there does not appear to be any relationship between blood type and COVID-19–related severity of illness or mortality. Current literature does not support blood type as part of a predictive model of viral illness or mortality, and ABO/Rh screening should not be used as a triage mechanism.

Scientists Needed Help Against Covid-19. They Asked Sports.

The NBA and NFL generated rich data throughout the pandemic—and changed the way researchers thought about the coronavirus.

The Answer to Stopping the Coronavirus May Be Up Your Nose

The currently available Covid-19 vaccines are injected into people’s arm muscles and are highly capable at combating the virus once people are infected. But they are not as successful at preventing people from getting infected to begin with. To do that, you ideally want to stop a virus from spreading right at the site where people get infected: the nasal cavity.

The ‘End’ of COVID Is Still Far Worse Than We Imagined

This coronavirus has also proved a wilier opponent than expected. Despite a relatively slow rate of mutation at the beginning of the pandemic, it soon evolved into variants that are more inherently contagious and better at evading immunity. With each major wave, “the virus has only gotten more transmissible,” says Ruth Karron, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins.

What to Do if You Test Positive for Covid-19 as Omicron Variant Surges

After nearly two years of pandemic, figuring out what you’re supposed to do after receiving a positive test result is still tricky, and varying vaccination status among the population makes the questions more complex.

What to Know About the New COVID Mini-Wave

There is clear evidence that COVID-19 is on the rise in New York City, the U.S., and other places around the world, but the late-summer surge in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths is so far more like an uptick than a wave, and those numbers remain low. There’s also a new highly mutated variant called BA.2.86 on the scene and a newly updated COVID booster shot on the horizon.

What We Know So Far about How COVID Affects the Nervous System

Neurological symptoms might arise from multiple causes. But does the virus even get into neurons?

Who is getting sick, and how sick? A breakdown of coronavirus risk by demographic factors

The new coronavirus is not an equal-opportunity killer: Being elderly and having other illnesses, for instance, greatly increases the risk of dying from the disease the virus causes, Covid-19. It’s also possible being male could put you at increased risk.

Why It Feels Like Everyone You Know Is Getting Covid-19

If you are stuck at home with Covid-19 after the holidays, you are not alone. Covid is surging again, four years after the pandemic began, as a new virus subvariant becomes dominant in the U.S. and as people gather indoors to escape cold weather. Rising wastewater virus levels and hospitalizations underscore the latest winter Covid surge.