EurekAlert! COVID-19 Online Newsroom - Latest News Releases

Latest News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 3-May-2025 13:09 ET (3-May-2025 17:09 GMT/UTC)

The first mouse strain that is susceptible to severe COVID-19 without genetic modification has been identified

Jackson Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at The Jackson Laboratory and Trudeau Institute have identified the first mouse strain that is susceptible to severe COVID-19 without the need for genetic modification. This development, reported in Scientific Reports, marks a pivotal step forward in infectious disease research, providing an essential tool to develop vaccines and therapeutics for future coronavirus variants and potential pandemics.

Journal: Scientific Reports
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health

Psilocybin therapy helps clinicians process COVID despair

University of Washington School of Medicine/UW Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy resulted in significant reductions in depression among clinicians who provided front-line COVID-19 care in 2020 and 2021. These reductions were measurably greater than those experienced by the cohort of clinicians who received a placebo instead. Findings from this double-blind, randomized clinical trial are to be published in JAMA Network Open at 8 a.m. PST Thursday, Dec. 5.

“For doctors and nurses who feel burned out or disillusioned or disconnected from the patient care they want to provide, this study shows that psilocybin therapy is safe and can help these clinicians work through those feelings and get better,” said Dr. Anthony Back, the lead investigator.

Journal: JAMA Network Open

Long COVID-19 is costing Americans money

University of Georgia
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is continuing to wreak havoc on some Americans’ finances, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.

Journal: Health Services Research

Study uses game theory to rethink our pandemic responses

Dartmouth College
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Dartmouth researchers use game theory to propose a new way of thinking about masking and social distancing rules that is more responsive to public sentiment and may help increase cooperation. The study is the first to consider mask wearing and social distancing as competing actions that people respond to differently, which would give public health officials more flexibility to adapt to epidemics.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NIH/National Institutes of Health

Why some individuals believe fake news and conspiracies

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

People who are credulous are less capable of recognizing fake news, and along with mistrustful adults, are more susceptible to conspiracy thinking and vaccine hesitancy, according to a study published December 4, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Michal Tanzer and colleagues from University College London, U.K.

Journal: PLOS Global Public Health

New ASTRO survey finds that prior authorization delays lead to serious harm for people with cancer

American Society for Radiation Oncology
Reports and Proceedings

A new nationwide survey of 750+ radiation oncologists confirms that prior authorization harms people with cancer by causing treatment delays, abandoned treatments, hospitalizations and deaths. Findings also make clear that the problem of prior authorization is growing worse, with patients now experiencing longer radiation therapy treatment delays than during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results of the survey, the latest in a series from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), reinforce the urgent need for Congress to pass prior authorization reform legislation and prevent further harm to people with cancer.

70% of young people with long Covid recover within two years

University College London
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Most young people who were confirmed to have long Covid three months after a positive PCR test had recovered within 24 months, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.

Journal: Communications Medicine

Researchers design a therapeutic tool to inhibit the proliferation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19

University of Barcelona
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study led by the University of Barcelona and the Spanish National Research Council’s Institute for Advanced Chemistry of Catalonia (IQAC - CSIC) presents a new therapeutic tool capable of inhibiting the proliferation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. The results open up new perspectives in the fight against this coronavirus and other viral diseases that still have no medical treatment, such as the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHFV).

Journal: Journal of Biological Chemistry

COVID infection and age-related blindness

PNAS Nexus
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An experimental study in mice shows that SARS-CoV-2 infection can damage the retinas. According to the authors, SARS-CoV-2 infection could thus accelerate the onset and progression of age-related blindness.

Journal: PNAS Nexus

Pregnancy enhances natural immunity to block severe flu

McGill University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

McGill University scientists have discovered that pregnancy may trigger a natural immunity to boost protection against severe flu infection. Contrary to the common belief that pregnancy increases vulnerability to infections, researchers found that it strengthened an immune defense in mice, blocking the Influenza A virus from spreading to the lungs, where it can cause severe infection.

Journal: Science Advances

Study details surprising biological mechanisms underlying severe COVID-19

Weill Cornell Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Severe COVID-19 arises in part from the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s impact on mitochondria, tiny oxygen-burning power plants in cells, which can help trigger a cascade of organ- and immune system-damaging events, suggests a study by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, along with other members of the COVID-19 International Research Team.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Study untangles how COVID-19 wreaks widespread damage in the body

University of Pittsburgh
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research sheds light on the pathways that drive organ damage and death in severe COVID-19 and helps explain why survivors of the disease can experience long-term complications.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Brief scientific literacy interventions may quash new conspiracy theories

Penn State
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The more time you spend on social media, the likelier you are to have come across a viral post that seems too strange to be true. Brief scientific literacy interventions, especially those that focus on critical thinking skills, may help to undermine conspiracy beliefs and behaviors before the conspiracy theories have a chance to take root, according to a team led by Penn State researchers.

Journal: Journal of Consumer Research

A cause of hyperinflammatory response in lethal COVID-19 identified

Johns Hopkins Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

As part of the COVID-19 International Research Team, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pittsburgh and Weill Cornell Medicine discovered a novel cause of cytokine storm — the extreme inflammatory response associated with increased risk of death in COVID-19 infection.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: Division of Intramural Research, NIH grant to Sonja Best, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation, Hodson Scholar Foundation

Covid-19 reduced sex offender behaviour – new study

University of Birmingham
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The number of sex offences committed by strangers decreased significantly in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic, new research shows.

Journal: Psychology of Violence

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