COVID and SARS News

December 20, 2024

Top Headlines

Game-Changing Needle-Free COVID-19 Intranasal Vaccine

Aug. 27, 2024 — A next-generation COVID-19 mucosal vaccine is set to be a gamechanger not only when delivering the vaccine itself, but also for people who are ...

Researchers Create New Treatment and Vaccine for Flu and Various Coronaviruses

Aug. 6, 2024 — Researchers have discovered new ways of preventing and treating respiratory viruses. In two new papers, the team reports the development and validation of NanoSTING, a nasal spray, as a ...

How COVID-19 'Breakthrough' Infections Alter Your Immune Cells

May 24, 2024 — Researchers discovered that people who experienced symptomatic breakthrough infections develop T cells that are better at recognizing and targeting SARS-CoV-2, including the Omicron and Delta variants. The researchers describe this increased ...

Repeat COVID-19 Vaccinations Elicit Antibodies That Neutralize Variants, Other Viruses

May 17, 2024 — A study has found that repeat vaccination with updated versions of the COVID-19 vaccine promotes the development of antibodies that neutralize a wide range of variants of the virus that causes ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:44pm EST

Risk of Long COVID Declined Over Course of Pandemic

July 17, 2024 — The risk of long COVID has declined over the course of the pandemic, although it remains a persistent threat. Researchers identified vaccination as a primary factor in reducing the risk of long ...

Risk Factors for Long COVID Revealed

June 17, 2024 — A new study sheds light on factors that may have predisposed some patients to recover more slowly after ...

Regular Vaccine Boosts May Help People Who Are Immunocompromised Fight COVID-19, Study Suggests

July 2, 2024 — Research finds that booster doses of bivalent vaccines given every three to six months helps maintain a person's ability to neutralize multiple ...

Researchers Take Step Toward Development of Universal COVID-19 Antibodies

May 30, 2024 — A new human monoclonal antibody moves a step closer to a universal antibody cocktail that works against all strains of ...

New Study Helps Explain How Elderly Individuals React Differently to COVID-19 Than Young People

June 10, 2024 — A new study suggests that the immune response of lung endothelial cells, which line the blood vessels, is too low during the early stage of COVID-19 ...

Century-Old Vaccine Protects Type 1 Diabetics from Infectious Diseases

May 22, 2024 — Researchers conducted a Phase III trial to test the 100-year-old Bacillus Calmette-Gu rin (BCG) vaccine in people with type 1 diabetes during the COVID-19 ...

New Vaccine Effective Against Coronaviruses That Haven't Even Emerged Yet

May 6, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new vaccine technology that has been shown in mice to provide protection against a broad range of coronaviruses with potential for future disease outbreaks -- including ...

Testing Environmental Water to Monitor COVID-19 Spread in Unsheltered Encampments

Apr. 3, 2024 — To better understand COVID-19's spread during the pandemic, public health officials expanded wastewater surveillance. These efforts track SARS-CoV-2 ...

Researchers Develop More Broadly Protective Coronavirus Vaccine

Apr. 1, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new vaccine that offers broad protection against not only SARS-CoV-2 variants, but also other bat sarbecoviruses. The groundbreaking trivalent vaccine has shown complete ...

Optimizing Boosters: How COVID mRNA Vaccines Reshape Immune Memory After Each Dose

Mar. 8, 2024 — COVID-19 vaccines elicit strong T-cell responses, but clonal-resolution analyses of these responses have not previously been performed. To address ...

Novel Host Factors That Facilitate SARS-CoV-2 Entry

July 2, 2024 — Researchers have identified new host factors that interact with the receptor binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to promote viral entry. This finding offers valuable mechanistic insights ...

COVID-19 Vaccination and Boosting During Pregnancy Protects Infants for Six Months, Study Finds

Feb. 14, 2024 — Women who receive an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination or booster during pregnancy can provide their infants with strong protection against symptomatic COVID-19 infection for at least six months after ...

New Vaccine Design Uses Immunity Against Influenza to Offer Faster Protection Against Emerging Pathogens

Jan. 17, 2024 — Imagine a vaccine that speeds up the production of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that spreads COVID-19. A research team has developed such a vaccine by using preexisting immunity to a ...

A Universal Coronavirus Vaccine Could Save Billions of Dollars If Ready Before Next Pandemic, Study Suggests

Jan. 11, 2024 — A new study suggests that once developed, a universal vaccine in advance of the next coronavirus epidemic/pandemic can save up to 7 million hospitalizations and 2 million deaths even when it is the ...

SARS-CoV-2 BA.2.86 Is Less Resistant to Vaccine, but May Be a Problem in the Lung

Jan. 8, 2024 — New research shows that the recently emerged BA.2.86 omicron subvariant of the virus that causes COVID-19 can be neutralized by bivalent mRNA vaccine-induced antibodies in the blood, which explains ...

Being Overweight Hampers Body's Immune Response to SARS-CoV-2, Study Shows

Dec. 4, 2023 — New research shows being overweight can impair the body's antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 infection but not to the protection offered by ...

Nasal Vaccine Prevents COVID in Preclinical Studies, Researchers Report

Nov. 6, 2023 — Researchers have developed a nasal spray vaccine that delivers the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into cells of the airway, stopping viral particle replication before a virus can enter the bloodstream. ...

A New Era for Accurate, Rapid COVID-19 Testing

Oct. 26, 2023 — Researchers demonstrate a nanopore-based technique that can detect different variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The method was very effective in detecting the Omicron variant of ...

Single Vaccine Protects Against Three Deadly Strains of Coronavirus

Oct. 18, 2023 — A vaccine designed to protect against three different deadly coronaviruses shows success in mouse studies, demonstrating the viability of a pan-coronavirus vaccine developed by researchers at the ...

Study Uncovers Reasons Americans Did Not Get Booster Vaccines

Oct. 2, 2023 — In September 2022, new bivalent COVID-19 boosters became available in the United States, but less than 20% of the eligible population ultimately received one. A new study identified why so many ...

Trivalent Vaccine Candidate Fights Measles, Mumps, SARS-CoV-2

Oct. 2, 2023 — Altered measles and mumps viruses could be used as a platform to create a trivalent COVID-19 vaccine that triggers immunity to multiple variant strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, new research in ...

COVID-19 Vaccination and Boosting During Pregnancy Benefits Pregnant People and Newborns

Aug. 11, 2023 — Receiving a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine or booster during pregnancy can benefit pregnant people and their newborn infants, according to new ...

New Insights Into How Patient Factors and COVID-19 Infection Affect Antibody Responses in People With HIV

Mar. 9, 2023 — Researchers have examined how patient characteristics and COVID-19 infection may affect the antibody responses of people with HIV -- including responses against SARS-CoV-2 proteins as well as ...

COVID-19 Vaccination Protects People With Blood Cancer

Dec. 22, 2022 — Researchers have demonstrated that people suffering from blood cancer have a good immune response to COVID-19 vaccinations. Vaccination protects patients with B-cell lymphoma and multiple myeloma ...

First-Line Immune Defenses Against COVID-19 Are Short-Lived and May Explain Reinfection, Study Shows

Dec. 20, 2022 — A new study finds that antibodies produced in the nose decline nine months after COVID-19 infection, while antibodies found in the blood last at least a ...

Long-Term Immune Response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination Is Unaffected by Pregnancy, Study Finds

Dec. 13, 2022 — The long-term immune response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination was similar in pregnant individuals compared with non-pregnant individuals of reproductive age, according to a new study. The similarity ...

Studies Find Omicron Related Hospitalizations Lower in Severity Than Delta, and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID Vaccine Remains Effective in Preventing Hospitalizations

Dec. 13, 2022 — Adult hospitalizations from Omicron-related SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) were less severe than Delta, and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (also known as Comirnaty and BNT162b2) remains effective in preventing ...

Expanding the Arsenal of Drugs Against COVID-19

Dec. 9, 2022 — Researchers have developed novel compounds with the potential to be drug treatments for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. This work also proves that replacing easily ...

Researchers Identify a New Entryway Into Cells for Virus Causing COVID-19

Dec. 7, 2022 — In a study adding to the pool of knowledge about viral entry, researchers have published a highly compelling study showing a previously unrecognized entryway for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes ...

How Antibody Therapy Impacts COVID Vaccines

Dec. 6, 2022 — People who receive monoclonal antibodies before vaccines may benefit from increased coverage, due to antibody feedback inhibition, according to new ...