Restrictions on social contact stemmed disease spread, but weighing up the ultimate costs and benefits of lockdown measures is a challenge. By Dyani Lewis In March 2021, a doctor in Brazil named Ricardo Savaris published a now-discredited research paper that went...
Vaccines inhaled through the mouth or nose might stop the coronavirus in its tracks, although there’s little evidence from human trials so far. By Emily Waltz Editor's note: Indian regulators approved Bharat Biotech's intranasal vaccine for emergency use on...
Those with SARS-CoV-2 are often advised to isolate for only a few days. But evidence is mounting that some people can continue to pass on the virus for much longer. By David Adam When the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) halved its recommended...
Researchers are learning more about how the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus stifles smell — and how they might revive it. By Michael Marshall Researchers are finally making headway in understanding how the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causes loss of smell. And a multitude of...
By Vojtěch Bartoš, et al. Abstract The reluctance of people to get vaccinated represents a fundamental challenge to containing the spread of deadly infectious diseases1,2, including COVID-19. Identifying misperceptions that can fuel vaccine hesitancy and creating...
Researchers are trying to calculate how many years have been lost to disability and death. By Holly Else How do you count the cost of a pandemic? COVID-19 has killed an estimated 15 million people since it emerged at the end of 2019, but its impact on health...
Scientists are studying whether long COVID could be linked to viral fragments found in the body months after initial infection. By Heidi Ledford In the chaos of the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, oncologist and geneticist Ami Bhatt was intrigued by...
Hundreds of white-tailed deer in North America have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Here’s why scientists aren’t panicking, yet. By Smriti Mallapaty Researchers prepare to swab a white-tailed deer in College Station, Texas, to check for SARS-CoV-2.Credit: Sergio...
The emergence of a new variant is just a matter of time, scientists say. By Heidi Ledford Now what? After the Omicron variant brought a fresh wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections and anxiety at the start of 2022, some nations are starting to record a decline in...
Massive study shows a long-term, substantial rise in risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke, after a SARS-CoV-2 infection. By Saima May Sidik with Commentary from Michael Lerner We read in the media that we're moving past Covid. The word is...
Hamsters are only the second species known to have spread SARS-CoV-2 to humans. By Smriti Mallapaty Pet hamsters probably carried the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 into Hong Kong and sparked a human COVID-19 outbreak, according to a genomic analysis of viral samples...
Immunologists have raced to work out how to protect against multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2. Their research has yielded a wealth of insights and a few surprises. By Cassandra Willyard No one anticipated how quickly Omicron would sweep the globe. Although the surge...
Only half of participants who were exposed to the coronavirus developed infections, most with mild symptoms. By Ewen Callaway Healthy, young people who were intentionally exposed to the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 developed mild symptoms — if any — in a first-of-its-kind...
By Yunlong Cao The SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 variant (Omicron) contains 15 mutations on the receptor-binding domain (RBD). How Omicron would evade RBD neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) requires immediate investigation. Here, we used high-throughput yeast display...
The extraordinary vaccination of more than four billion people, and the lack of access for many others, were major forces this year — while Omicron’s arrival complicated things further. By Smriti Mallapaty , Ewen Callaway , Max Kozlov , Heidi Ledford , John...