Viruses

Milder or Not, Omicron Could Still Overwhelm Hospitals

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When news of the novel coronavirus’s Omicron variant first broke over the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., the sense of dread and fatigue was palpable. Just when the COVID pandemic’s outlook had started to improve, we were faced with a new arrival that was clearly more transmissible than previous variants—and likely able to significantly evade … Read more

An mRNA Flu Vaccine Just Delivered Positive Phase 1 Trial Results

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US biotech company Moderna on Friday announced promising data from an early-stage human trial of its mRNA flu shot, based on the same technology used in its successful COVID-19 vaccine.   The experimental flu shot was found to be safe, and successfully evoked high levels of antibodies in 180 people at all dosage levels, in … Read more

COVID Variants Hint at How the Virus Will Evolve

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As the world sped towards a pandemic in early 2020, evolutionary biologist Jesse Bloom gazed into the future of SARS-CoV-2. Like many virus specialists at the time, he predicted that the new pathogen would not be eradicated. Rather, it would become endemic—the fifth coronavirus to permanently establish itself in humans, alongside four ‘seasonal’ coronaviruses that … Read more

Omicron Is Likely to Weaken COVID Vaccine Protection–but Boosters Could Restore It

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The fast-spreading Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant is highly likely to compromise some of the protection from vaccines, suggest the first laboratory studies of Omicron’s ability to evade immunity. But the preliminary results—released overnight by teams in South Africa, Germany, and Sweden, as well as the Pfizer-BioNtech collaboration—hint that protection conferred by existing COVID-19 vaccines won’t be … Read more