Out with the new, in with the old? As COVID slowly exits the epidemiological limelight (but is still very much here to stay), outbreaks of another icky germ — norovirus — are making a comeback and returning to prepandemic numbers, according to a new CDC report. Commonly known as the stomach flu, “cruise ship virus,” … Read more
Scientists have identified a molecule that just loves SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It loves it so much that it “hugs” it, practically to death—binding so tightly to the virus that the virus can’t infect our cells. The discovery of this molecule, a so-called “HR2 peptide,” is a big deal. It could form the … Read more
It was Mother’s Day in May 2020, and an elderly woman lay dying in a Rhode Island nursing home. Her children couldn’t visit because of Covid, and as much as Adelina Ramos, her certified nursing assistant, longed to provide comfort from her bedside, she had to leave, even though she could see the woman was … Read more
PULLMAN, Wash. — Is the next pandemic on the horizon? Scientists are warning of a new, COVID-like virus called Khosta-2 originating from a Russian bat. It is believed to be capable of infecting humans, and would be resistant to current vaccines. Khosta-2 was found two years ago in horsehoe bats. Its discovery adds to evidence that sarbecoviruses — part of … Read more
When SARS-CoV-2 – the virus behind COVID-19 – surfaced in China and quickly brought the entire world to a standstill, then-President Donald Trump liked to refer to it as “the Chinese virus”. Fast forward two and a half years, and US scientists are warning that a newly-discovered virus harboured by Russian horseshoe bats is also … Read more
All over the world, the rates of death and hospitalization from COVID keep dropping. But our successful mitigation of the worst outcomes of the 33-month-old pandemic belie a growing crisis. More and more people are surviving COVID and staying out of the hospital, but more and more people are also living with long-term symptoms of … Read more
Image: Shutterstock (Shutterstock) A virus that can rarely cause a polio-like paralysis in children has resurfaced in the U.S. after mostly disappearing during the covid-19 pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that it has spotted a surge of cases linked to enterovirus D-68. Based on recent past outbreaks, officials expect that a … Read more
The novel coronavirus, like all viruses, mutates and evolves. Fast. Variant after variant. Subvariants between the variants. The virus is active. But our efforts to contain it are reactive. Thirty-four months into the COVID-19 pandemic, we still haven’t figured out a way to get ahead of the virus—and offer people immunity that endures even as … Read more
When the pharmaceutical industry scrambled to develop the first COVID vaccines back in 2020, it made sense that developers focused on the part of the virus that allows it to grab onto and infect our cells: the spike proteins. The best vaccines contain a piece of the spike, or genetic data about the spike, either … Read more