COVID-19 Online Newsroom

The researchers discovered that BCG regimes are associated with better COVID-19 outcomes, both in reducing infection rates and death rates per million, especially for ages 24 or younger who had received the vaccination in the last 15 years. There was no effect among older adults who had received the BCG vaccine. Many countries have stopped inoculating their entire population, but some still use BCG widely.

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside, have used machine learning to identify hundreds of new potential drugs that could help treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2. To identify several candidates, they developed a drug discovery pipeline -- a type of computational strategy linked to artificial intelligence.

Children made up a very small proportion--just 1%--of all confirmed COVID-19 cases in England during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, despite the large numbers of them tested, reveals a study based on national monitoring data, and published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

A preliminary analysis of an ongoing study of more than 300 COVID-19 patients treated with convalescent plasma therapy at Houston Methodist suggests the treatment is safe and effective. The results, published in The American Journal of Pathology, represent one of the first peer-reviewed publications in the country assessing efficacy of convalescent plasma and offer valuable scientific evidence that transfusing critically ill COVID-19 patients with high antibody plasma early in their illness reduced the mortality rate.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, many universities canceled classes or held them online this spring -- a change likely to continue for many this fall. As a result, hands-on chemistry labs are no longer accessible to undergraduate students. In a new study in the Journal of Chemical Education, researchers describe an alternative way to engage students: a virtual game, modeled on an escape room, in which teams solve chemistry problems to progress and 'escape.'

Eric Ross and Sean Cascarina, biochemistry and molecular biology researchers at Colorado State University, have released a research paper identifying a protein encoded by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that may be associated with the quick spread of the virus through cells in the human body. Through powerful application of the foundational sciences and bioinformatic analysis their research highlights key characteristics of the virus that could one day be important in the development of a treatment for COVID-19.

Researchers found a striking association between BMI and risk for death among patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19. The association was independent of obesity-related comorbities and other potential confounders. Their findings also suggest that high BMI was more strongly associated with COVID-19 mortality in younger adults and male patients, but not in female patients and older adults. A retrospective cohort study is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

How common lupus anticoagulant (LA) positivity is in patients with COVID-19 was assessed in this observational study, which also examined the association of LA positivity with patient outcomes.

Patients with undiagnosed flu symptoms who actually had COVID-19 last winter were among thousands of undetected early cases of the disease at the beginning of this year. In a new paper in The Lancet's open-access journal EClinicalMedicine, epidemiological researchers from The University of Texas at Austin estimated COVID-19 to be far more widespread in Wuhan, China, and Seattle, Washington, weeks ahead of lockdown measures in each city.

This essay describes the author's experience of having COVID-19.

Collaboration brings together clinicians and researchers on the front lines of COVID-19 to support innovative solutions for health disparities.