There have been rare reports of people recovering from infection with SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, only to test positive a second time. Such results might be explained by reports that the virus can linger in our systems. Yet some important questions remain: Is it possible that people...
There have been rare reports of people recovering from infection with SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, only to test positive a second time. Such results might be explained by reports that the virus can linger in our systems. Yet some important questions remain: Is it possible that people could beat this virus only to get reinfected a short time later? How long does immunity last after infection? And what can we expect about the duration of protection from a vaccine?
A safe, effective vaccine is the ultimate tool needed to end the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Biomedical researchers are making progress every day towards such a vaccine, whether it’s devising innovative technologies or figuring out ways to speed human testing. In fact, just this week, NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) established a new clinical trials network that will enroll tens of thousands of volunteers in large-scale clinical trials testing a variety of investigational COVID-19 vaccines.
You’ve probably seen pictures of SARS-CoV-2—the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19—that look alarming. But the high-resolution micrograph above paints a rather different picture, using rich pseudo-colors to show how newly assembled viral particles cause infected cells to bulge, or bleb, and then self-destruct.
It’s now clear that nearly everyone who recovers from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) produces antibodies that specifically target SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes the infection. Yet many critical questions remain. A major one is: just how well do those particular antibodies neutralize the virus to fight off the infection and help someone recover from COVID-19? Fortunately, ost people get better, but should the typical antibody response take the credit?
