Covid-19: Iceland’s plans for herd immunity

Many countries have scaled back their coronavirus restrictions, but Iceland is going further with a plan to let infections spread Health 11 March 2022 By Clare Wilson A person cycles in Reykjavik, Iceland, on 3 September 2020 REUTERS / Alamy Like some other countries, Iceland has scrapped its remaining covid-19 restrictions. Unlike other nations, however, … Read more

A Cat in Pennsylvania Caught The Delta Variant. But It’s Not All Bad News

SARS-CoV-2 is not picky about its host. Since the virus first started spreading among humans, it has jumped from our species to pets, livestock, and even wild animals. Cats appear to be particularly susceptible to contracting COVID, although they often don’t show symptoms, and it’s unlikely that they can pass the virus back to us. Even … Read more

Strange Evolutionary Pace of SARS-CoV-2 Mutations Is Finally Revealed in New Study

The timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic has been marked by a series of catastrophic waves: surging crests of infection spreading around the world, often spearheaded by newly evolved variants of the pathogen, such as Delta and Omicron.   This is simply how viral evolution can play out, of course. But SARS-CoV-2 is an unusually successful … Read more

World-First Experiment That Infected People With Coronavirus Shares Early Results

Scientists deliberately infected young, healthy volunteers with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 – and now, they’ve shared their first results from that experiment.      The new study, published Tuesday (Feb. 1) in Springer Nature’s preprint database, In Review, has not yet been peer-reviewed, but it could provide insight into how mild COVID-19 unfolds, from the moment … Read more

How much more contagious could the coronavirus get?

The coronavirus is evolving to become more transmissible, and eventually it could even overtake measles, the most contagious virus we know of Health 26 January 2022 By Alice Klein An illustration of SARS-CoV-2 Gerd Altmann/Pixabay Over the past two years, we have witnessed evolution in action, with new variants of the coronavirus becoming increasingly contagious. … Read more

Omicron in children: Cases remain mild despite rise in hospitalisations

By Michael Le Page More school-aged children are being infected by omicron, but findings suggest it causes less severe disease than previous variants Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Several countries are reporting record numbers of children being hospitalised as omicron spreads, with babies especially likely to be admitted. While this has led to claims that omicron is … Read more