Coronavirus News, Features & Updates

December 4, 2023 — COVID-19 appears to be heading for a holiday season increase across most of the country. More people are testing positive, visiting emergency rooms for treatment, and being admitted to the hospital with severe symptoms. This follows a relatively quiet autumn for COVID, and comes as rates of other respiratory illnesses like the flu are also picking up.

November 30, 2023 — The federal government will send millions of free COVID-19 tests to schools across the country. School districts can give the tests for free to students, staff, parents, and communities.

November 28, 2023 — An emerging variant of COVID-19 called BA.2.86 that caused alarm earlier this summer has landed on the CDC’s radar again.

November 27, 2023 — People who have long COVID exhibit changes in certain sections of their brains not found in people who are fully recovered from COVID, according to a study that used a novel kind of magnetic resonance imaging.

November 20, 2023 — About three-quarters of people don’t have great worries about getting COVID-19 over the winter holidays, according to a survey of about 1,400 adults conducted by KFF.

November 10, 2023 — The traditional home remedy of gargling and rinsing your nasal passages with salt water may ease the symptoms of COVID-19 and help keep people out of the hospital, according to a new study.

November 8, 2023 — One Johns Hopkins doctor says the patients he sees with multiple infections with respiratory viruses are "by far our sickest patients." Good news, though: There are vaccines and drugs to treat most of them.

November 2, 2023 — Adults over 50 lost brain strength during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of infection, a new study says. Results showed a cognitive decline, with stress, loneliness, and alcohol use possibly explaining some findings.

October 31, 2023 — A new study out of Denmark showed that more than half of people with severe cases of long COVID failed to improve after a year and a half.

October 30, 2023 — Two medicines that help prevent severe COVID-19 will no longer be distributed by the federal government starting Wednesday.

October 27, 2023 — The coronavirus is constantly mutating to survive the growing antibody pushback it encounters as our bodies learn how to fight it. COVID's newest variant is an offshoot of BA.2.86 called JN.1.

October 27, 2023 — Study results showed that long COVID does not appear to be linked to the SARS-CoV-2 virus invading the brain or causing active brain damage.

October 26, 2023 — Researchers identified 38 direct-to-consumer businesses selling purported stem cell therapies to prevent and treat the virus – 36 of which also claim to treat post-COVID syndrome.

October 25, 2023 — Child-care centers are not significant sources of COVID-19 transmission, according to a new University of Pittsburgh Medical School study published in JAMA Open Network.

October 19, 2023 — A large new study links COVID-19 with an increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Vaccination against COVID appeared to reduce the risk of GBS, which is a rare illness that can result in paralysis.

October 17, 2023 — The U.S. government has returned millions of doses of the COVID-19 antiviral medicine Paxlovid to its manufacturer.

October 17, 2023 — Long COVID is associated with lower levels of circulating serotonin, new research has found, and less serotonin could be relevant to neurological, cognitive and memory symptoms associated with long COVID.

October 16, 2023 — Severe cases of COVID-19 that require hospitalization continue to decline in the U.S., according to the CDC’s latest update on the pandemic.

October 10, 2023 — After being infected with COVID-19, people have a much higher risk of getting autoimmune and autoinflammatory connective-tissue disorders like alopecia, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis and vitiligo, according to new research.

October 2, 2023 — Hospitalizations for COVID-19 have dropped after about two months of increases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, though COVID-related deaths continue to go up.

September 29, 2023 — A study from the CDC found that vaccines were 54% effective at protecting infants from COVID-19 hospitalization in the first 3 months of life, and 35% effective at protecting babies from ages 3 months through 5 months old

September 28, 2023 — COVID-19 can raise the risk of heart attack and stroke by infecting the arteries of the heart and causing fatty plaque in the arteries to become inflamed, according to new research.

September 27, 2023 — About 250,000 courses of Pfizer’s anti-COVID pills are being administered weekly, CEO Albert Bourla said this week.The oral antiviral treatment Paxlovid is being distributed at no charge by the U.S. government, which bought about 24 million doses. About 15 million courses have been distributed so far.

September 26, 2023 — An estimated 18 million adults in the U.S. have had long COVID, and half of them are still dealing with the condition, new national survey data shows.

September 25, 2023 — New research points to pneumonia, not severe inflammation, as the true cause of severe COVID and death.

September 25, 2023 — The antiviral COVID medication molnupiravir made by Merck can cause mutations in the coronavirus that occasionally spread to other people, according to a study published in the online journal Nature. There’s no evidence that molnupiravir has caused the creation of more transmissible or severe variants of COVID.

September 25, 2023 — People with long COVID have specific biomarkers in their blood, a study published Monday in Nature said. The findings may be a step toward creating blood tests to positively identify people with long COVID.

September 22, 2023 — A real-world study published in JAMA Open Network found that Pfizer's COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid is now less effective at preventing hospitalization or death in high-risk patients as compared to earlier studies.

September 20, 2023 — The summer-long surge of COVID-19 may be peaking in some parts of the U.S., according to wastewater monitoring.

September 20, 2023 — Starting Sept. 25, Americans can request four free rapid coronavirus tests, the Biden administration announced Wednesday.

September 19, 2023 — The highly mutated version of the COVID virus called BA.2.86 has already infected people in 10 U.S. states, according to a worldwide COVID tracking database.

September 19, 2023 — The rate of long COVID for children is “strikingly low,” less than 1%, say researchers behind a new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

September 18, 2023 — Amid an increasing number of COVID hospitalizations and deaths, WebMD reached out to several experts for their practical tips and guidance.

September 18, 2023 — The most common symptoms of COVID-19 have become so mild that it’s getting harder to tell the illness from allergies or the common cold, according to personal accounts from doctors.

September 14, 2023 — Amid a surge in cases and hospitalizations, there’s a concern we don’t know the true extent of the disease if people avoid testing because of the cost.

September 13, 2023 — Hospitalizations from COVID-19 rose for an eighth straight week for the period ending Sept. 2, although the increase dipped into single digits for the first time in that stretch. New hospital admissions ticked up 9%, to 18,871 people, the CDC reported in its latest dispatch of virus metrics.

September 5, 2023 — The new highly mutated COVID variant BA.2.86 does not have a heightened ability to evade the protection of COVID-19 vaccines or immunity from prior infection, new laboratory tests show.

September 1, 2023 — A new study links long COVID cognitive problems such as brain fog to higher levels of proteins known to be involved with the way that blood clots.

August 31, 2023 — COVID-19 hospitalizations rose by 19% last week and COVID deaths rose by 21%, according to figures from the CDC. More than half the states, 26, had a “substantial increase” in hospital admissions.

August 31, 2023 — Only a few dozen cases of the new variant have been reported around the globe, but experts are keeping a close eye on the variant dubbed Pirola.

August 31, 2023 — Close and prolonged contact with someone with COVID-19 can more than quadruple the risk of getting the virus, a new study confirms. A higher – but somewhat reduced – risk persists even among people who have been vaccinated, had a prior infection, or both.

August 30, 2023 — Just 7% of U.S. adults are “very worried” about getting COVID-19, according to a new poll.

August 30, 2023 — WebMD turned to the experts for their take on the current circulating virus, asking them to predict if we’ll be masking up again anytime soon, and what this fall and winter might look like, especially now that testing and vaccinations are no longer free of charge.

August 28, 2023 — A new study reveals the dramatic increase in the use of mental health services during the pandemic and shows that the increase has largely been sustained, mostly by people accessing care via telehealth.

August 24, 2023 — Some cases of long COVID-19 might be going unidentified because the patient’s initial infection wasn’t detected.

August 24, 2023 — A new strain of COVID-19 that was only identified a week ago in the U.S. has prompted the CDC to take the rare step of issuing a formal message that it could evade vaccines or the protection of natural immunity.

August 22, 2023 — COVID-19 metrics keep ticking up, as the calendar counts down toward the end of September, when an updated vaccine is expected to be made available.

August 22, 2023 — COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are increasing in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

August 22, 2023 — People who have been infected with the COVID-19 virus have a greater risk of many long-term health conditions, including diabetes, lung problems, fatigue, blood clots and disorders affecting the gastrointestinal and musculoskeletal systems.

August 21, 2023 — Infection with COVID-19 may increase a person’s risk of developing high blood pressure, according to a new study.