How COVID-19 Vaccines and Infections Are Tweaking Our Immunity

Your immune system may be getting smarter every time you encounter COVID-19, a new study suggests. After getting vaccinated and infected, the immune system generates broader defenses against the virus, including against new variants.

'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?

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.

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-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.

How Covid-19's symptoms have changed with each new variant

With a new variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus causing a spike in cases, it is demonstrating just how much the disease has changed since the pandemic began – and what happened to "Covid toe".

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.

Soaring COVID and flu cases, described as ‘moderately severe’ in number, are prompting hospitals to restore mask mandates

More U.S. hospitals are requiring masks and limiting visitors as health officials face an expected but still nasty post-holiday spike in flu, COVID-19 and other illnesses. While many experts say this season likely won’t prove to be as deadly as some other recent winters, it still could mean hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and many thousands of deaths across the country.

We’re In a Major COVID-19 Surge. It’s Our New Normal

Yet even as the trends veer in the wrong direction, people are still working in offices, going to school, eating in restaurants, and sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in movie theaters, largely unmasked. It can be hard to know how to feel about that reality. Viewed through a 2020 lens, many people would consider it catastrophically concerning that people are living normally even as COVID-19 sickens the equivalent of an entire city’s population every single day. But is it as worrisome in 2024, when the pandemic is over on paper, if not in practice?

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.