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The Science of COVID-19

This is a curated list of links to current scientific knowledge. Links to sources are provided and information will be updated regularly. We have sections on:

SARS-CoV-2 virus Contagion & mechanism Susceptibility Datasets & data modeling Vaccine development Possible drugs & treatment

Testing Clinical treatment Shortages Tracking Social distancing & behavior Mythbusting

We link to articles written for those with some background in science, but not specialists in these fields. Where available, rather than linking to research papers or popular press articles, links to popular science publications such as Science News or Science are provided here.

Suggest additions or changes to this list by emailing [email protected].

Key:
"Updated" means a resource is regularly updated, for example a dataset.
Items are marked *new* for about a week after being added.
Last update: May 27, 2020; 11:29 pm Pacific 

Highlighted article

Highlighted source: "In the Pipeline" is a blog by Derek Lowe on the Science magazine website. He provides regular updates on news about coronavirus vaccine development, treatments, and research. Rather than link to all of his posts below, I recommend checking his blog as part of your regular COVID news reading.

SARS-CoV-2 virus 

• General
  • The Order of Battle (Apr. 24)
  • Intro to Viruses, Antivirals, and Vaccines - Dr. Pamela Bjorkman (Apr. 2)
  • SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) by the numbers (Mar. 31)
  • David Ho interview, Pasadena Weekly (Mar. 26)
  • Interview of Dr. David Ho, leading HIV researcher, with Rachel Maddow (Mar. 13)
  • SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 Pandemic by Dr. Carolina Arias (summary) (Mar. 11)
• Origin & evolution
  • Why Scientists Think The Novel Coronavirus Developed Naturally — Not In A Chinese Lab (May 4)
  • Nextstrain: Real-time tracking of pathogen evolution (updated)
  • State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses (Apr. 14)
  • Mount Sinai Study Finds First Cases of COVID-19 in New York City are Primarily from European and US Sources (Apr. 9) 
  • NYU Langone Scientists Track Evolution of Coronavirus in New York City (Apr. 8)
  • 8 strains of the coronavirus are circling the globe. Here's what clues they're giving scientists (Mar. 28)
  • No, the coronavirus wasn’t made in a lab. A genetic analysis shows it’s from nature (Mar.26)
  • There’s no evidence the coronavirus jumped from pangolins to people (Mar. 26)
  • Coronavirus Evolved Naturally, and ‘Is Not a Laboratory Construct,’ Genetic Study Shows (Mar. 19)
  • Mutations can reveal how the coronavirus moves—but they’re easy to overinterpret (Mar. 9)
• Contagion & mechanism
  • *new* The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them (May 20)
  • Why 6 feet may not be enough social distance to avoid COVID-19 (Apr. 17)
  • COVID-19 may be most contagious one to two days before symptoms appear (Apr. 15)
  • Ultraviolet LEDs prove effective in eliminating coronavirus from surfaces and, potentially, air and water (Apr. 14)
  • Experts: COVID-19 pandemic unlikely to ebb as weather warms (Apr. 8)
  • High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (Apr. 7; R₀ = 5.7 in China)
  • Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks (Apr. 3)
  • Just breathing or talking may be enough to spread COVID-19 after all (Apr. 2)
  • Coronavirus can infect cats — dogs not so much (Apr. 1)
  • How large a gathering is too large during the coronavirus pandemic? (Apr. 1)
  • Quantifying SARS-CoV-2 transmission suggests epidemic control with digital contact tracing (Mar. 31)
  • A cat appears to have caught the coronavirus, but it’s complicated (Mar. 31)
  • Coronavirus and cash: Why consumers should be cautious, but not fearful of handling dollars (Mar. 27)
  • New coronavirus stable for hours on surfaces (Mar. 17)
  • People who didn’t know they had COVID-19 drove its spread in China (Mar. 17)
  • Why Soap Works (Mar. 13)
  • Coronavirus is most contagious before and during the first week of symptoms (Mar. 13)
  • Scientists figure out how new coronavirus breaks into human cells (Mar. 10)
• Symptoms & disease progression
  • Loss of smell and taste may actually be one of the clearest signs of COVID-19 (May 11) 
  • The mystery of the pandemic's ‘happy hypoxia’ (May 1)
  • Cytokine release syndrome in severe COVID-19 (May 1)
  • Some patients who survive COVID-19 may suffer lasting lung damage (Apr. 27) 
  • CDC confirms six coronavirus symptoms showing up in patients over and over (Apr. 27) 
  • Survivors' burden: What awaits the sickest COVID-19 patients after they leave the hospital? (Apr. 24) 
  • A rampage through the body (Apr. 24) 
  • A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients (Apr. 22) 
  • How does coronavirus kill? Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body, from brain to toes (Apr. 17)
  • Loss of smell and taste validated as COVID-19 symptoms in patients with high recovery rate (Apr. 13) 
• Susceptibility
  • Kids can develop severe complications from COVID-19 in rare cases (May 12)
  • Covid-19 quickly kills some while others don’t show symptoms. Can genetics explain this? (Apr. 27) 
  • SARS-CoV-2 Likely Uses Two Nose Cell Types for Entry (Apr. 24) 
  • Drugs for high blood pressure don’t appear to make COVID-19 worse (Apr. 23) 
  • COVID-19 kills more men than women. The immune system may be why (Apr. 23)
  • COVID-19 is hitting some patients with obesity particularly hard (Apr. 22) 
  • Racial toll of virus grows even starker as more data emerges (Apr. 18)
  • Why African-Americans may be especially vulnerable to COVID-19 (Apr. 10)
  • Extra Coronavirus Entry Points in Lung Cells of Smokers and COPD Patients May Increase Risk of Severe COVID-19 Infection (Apr. 9)
  • African Americans may be bearing the brunt of Covid-19, but access to data is limited (Apr. 6)
  • Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Children — United States, February 12–April 2, 2020 (Apr. 6) 
  • More Men Dying to COVID-19 Than Women (Apr. 3)
  • Endocrine and metabolic link to coronavirus infection (Apr. 2)
  • Preliminary Estimates of the Prevalence of Selected Underlying Health Conditions Among Patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Mar. 31)
  • Experimental AI tool predicts which COVID-19 patients develop respiratory disease (Mar. 30)
  • How sick will the coronavirus make you? The answer may be in your genes (Mar. 27)
  • COVID-19 might cause loss of smell. Here’s what that could mean (Mar. 27)
  • ACE-2 Expression in the Small Airway Epithelia of Smokers and COPD Patients: Implications for COVID-19 (Mar. 26)
  • Why some heart patients may be especially vulnerable to COVID-19 (Mar. 20)
  • Young adults can face severe cases of COVID-19, too (Mar. 19)
  • Blood type A ‘more vulnerable’ to coronavirus (Mar. 18)
• Immunity after infection
  • "Immunity passports" in the context of COVID-19 (Apr. 24)
  • Coronavirus reinfection fears grow as cured patients test positive with possibly ‘reactivated’ virus (Apr. 9)
  • Can You Be Re-Infected After Recovering From Coronavirus? Here's What We Know About COVID-19 Immunity (Apr. 3)

Datasets and data modeling

• Prediction models
  • CDC: COVID-19 Forecasts (May 6) 
  • How To Make Sense of All The COVID-19 Projections? A New Model Combines Them (May 13)
  • Where The Latest COVID-19 Models Think We're Headed — And Why They Disagree (May 1) 
  • CDC: COVID-19 Forecast Comparisons (Apr. 24) 
  • Columbia University: CU 20%, 30%, 40% contact reduction (updated)
  • Los Alamos: COVID-19 Confirmed and Forecasted Case Data (updated) 
  • Northeastern: Modeling COVID-19 in the United States (updated)
  • University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium (updated)
  • University of Geneva: COVID-19 Epidemic Forecasting (updated) 
  • Youyang Gu: COVID-19 Projections Using Machine Learning (updated)
  • Influential Covid-19 model uses flawed methods and shouldn’t guide U.S. policies, critics say (Apr. 17)
  • Stanford Potential Long-Term Intervention Strategies for COVID-19 (interactive)
  • CHIME COVID-19 Hospital Impact Model for Epidemics (interactive)
  • IHME COVID-19 Projections (Major update May 4) 
  • How coronavirus control measures could affect its global death toll (Apr. 1)
  • Coronavirus simulator: Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially, and how to “flatten the curve” (Mar. 14)
• Datasets & visualizations
  • University of Maryland COVID-19 Impact Analysis Platform (updated)
  • Facebook & Carnegie Mellon University COVID-19 Symptom Map (updated) 
  • COVID-19 Mobility Data Network (updated)
  • The COVID Tracking Project
  • COVID-19 Data Repository by Johns Hopkins 
  • California Open Dataset (dashboards: hospital, cases)
  • Community Mobility Reports from Google
  • Coronavirus Deaths by U.S. State and Country Over Time: Daily Tracker (NY Times)
  • An interactive visualization of the exponential spread of COVID-19 (included normalized by population)
  • JHU COVID-19 Dashboard
  • JHU United States COVID-19 Dashboard
  • United States Coronavirus (sort state data by normalized of population stats)
  • US Health Weather Map (internet-connected thermometer readings)

Vaccine development

Listed alphabetically. Note that popular press articles often are overly optimistic about vaccine development and testing timelines.

• General
  • *new* The world needs Covid-19 vaccines. It may also be overestimating their power (May 22)
  • COVID-19 shot protects monkeys (May 1)
  • Single-Dose Adenovirus-Based COVID-19 Vaccine Planned (Apr. 24)
  • U.K. Starts Oxford Coronavirus Vaccine Trial as Germany Green-Lights BioNTech and Pfizer (Apr. 23)
  • Portable Microfluidic Platform Developed for Detecting Coronavirus Using Smartphone (Apr. 24)
  • A Close Look at the Frontrunning Coronavirus Vaccines As of April 23 (Apr. 23) 
  • COVID-19 vaccine protects monkeys from new coronavirus, Chinese biotech reports (Apr. 23)
  • United States should allow volunteers to be infected with coronavirus to test vaccines, lawmakers argue (Apr. 21) 
  • Enabling Emergency Mass Vaccination: Innovations in Manufacturing and Administration During a Pandemic (Apr. 20) 
  • Manufacturing Platform Developed for Large-Scale Production of COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate (Apr. 14)
  • Vanquishing the Virus: 160+ COVID-19 Drug and Vaccine Candidates in Development (Apr. 13)
  • If a coronavirus vaccine arrives, can the world make enough? (Apr. 9) 
  • WHO R&D Blueprint: An international randomised trial of candidate vaccines against COVID-19 (Apr. 9)
  • Clues to COVID-19 coronavirus’s vulnerability emerge from an antibody against SARS (Apr. 3)
  • COVID-19 Treatment and Vaccine Tracker (updated)
  • ClinicalTrials.gov search for COVID-19 & vaccine (updated)
  • Coronavirus vaccines: Drug trials, chloroquine and treatments for COVID-19 (Apr. 7)
  • With record-setting speed, vaccinemakers take their first shots at the new coronavirus (Mar. 31)
  • Should scientists infect healthy people with the coronavirus to test vaccines? (Mar. 26)
  • WHO: DRAFT landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines (Mar. 21)
  • To tackle the new coronavirus, scientists accelerate the vaccine process (Feb. 21)
• BCG vaccine
  • Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination and COVID-19 (Apr. 12)
  • COVID-19: Could TB vaccine offer protection? (Apr. 2)
  • Correlation between universal BCG vaccination policy and reduced morbidity and mortality for COVID-19: an epidemiological study (Mar. 28)
• Inovio
  • Inovio stock rallies after company gets Gates Foundation grant to test device for coronavirus vaccine (Mar. 14)
• Johnson & Johnson
  • J&J, BARDA commit $1B to COVID-19 vaccine R&D (Mar. 30)
  • J&J Announces a Lead Vaccine Candidate for COVID-19; New Partnership with U.S. Dept of HHS; Commitment to Supply One Billion Vaccines Worldwide (Mar. 30)
• Moderna
  • I just got a shot of a coronavirus vaccine. I hope it works! (Apr. 8)
  • NIH clinical trial of investigational vaccine for COVID-19 begins (Mar. 16)
• Pfizer
  • Pfizer, BioNTech strike COVID-19 deal, commit multiple R&D sites to vaccine development (Mar. 17)
• University of Pittsburgh
  • COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Shows Promise (Apr. 2)
• Regeneron
  • HHS, Regeneron Collaborate to Develop 2019-nCoV Treatment (Feb. 4)

Possible drugs & treatments

Listed alphabetically. Note that popular press articles often are overly optimistic about drug development and testing timelines.

• General
  • New York clinical trial quietly tests heartburn remedy against coronavirus (Apr. 26)
  • Scientists explore using CAR-T and other engineered immune cells to target COVID-19 (Apr. 23) 
  • NIH partners with 16 drug companies in hopes of accelerating Covid-19 treatments and vaccines (Apr. 17) 
  • Here are the drugs that could treat coronavirus. But don’t expect a magic bullet (Apr. 16) 
  • Super-charging drug development for COVID-19 (Apr. 13) 
  • COVID-19 Treatment and Vaccine Tracker (updated)
  • ClinicalTrials.gov search for COVID-19 & treatment (updated)
  • In the Pipeline (updated; includes a number of columns on hydroxychloroquine and other drug trials)
  • Coronavirus vaccines: Drug trials, chloroquine and treatments for COVID-19 (Apr. 7)
  • Known Drugs Being Tried Against the Coronavirus: Runner-Up Candidates (Mar. 27)
  • Big Pharma companies join forces for fightback against COVID-19 (Mar. 27)
  • Race to find COVID-19 treatments accelerates (Mar. 27)
  • Catching Up to Coronavirus: Top 60 Treatments in Development (Mar. 18)
  • WHO to launch multinational trial to jumpstart search for coronavirus drugs (Mar. 18)
  • Expert reaction to questions around potential treatments for COVID-19 (Mar. 18)
  • Repurposed drugs may help scientists fight the new coronavirus (Mar. 10)
  • COVID-19 Drug Therapy — Potential Options
• Antibody therapies
  • Tocilizumab improves significantly clinical outcomes of patients with moderate or severe COVID-19 pneumonia (Apr. 27)
  • Human monoclonal antibodies block the binding of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to angiotensin converting enzyme 2 receptor (Apr. 20)
  • 'Directing' evolution to identify potential drugs earlier in discovery (Apr. 14)
  • Scangos' Vir Biotechnology to test COVID-19 antibody 'in the summer' (Mar. 25)
  • AlloVir, Baylor ally to develop COVID-19 T-cell therapy (Mar. 23)
  • Drug makers are racing to develop immune therapies for Covid-19. Will they be ready in time? (Mar. 19)
  • Fast-moving Regeneron eyes summer clinical trial for COVID-19 antibody cocktail therapy (Mar. 18)
• APN01 (ACE2 protein decoy)
  • Trial drug can significantly block early stages of COVID-19 in engineered human tissues (Apr. 2)
  • APEIRON’s respiratory drug product to start pilot clinical trial to treat coronavirus disease COVID-19 in China (Feb. 26)
• Convalescent blood plasma
  • *new* Convalescent plasma treatment of severe COVID-19: A matched control study (May 22)
  • In the Pipeline: Covid-19 Antibody Update (Apr. 8)
  • Can plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients treat the sick? (Apr. 3)
  • FDA: Revised Information for Investigational COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma (Apr. 3)
  • Treatment of 5 Critically Ill Patients With COVID-19 With Convalescent Plasma (Mar. 27)
  • Survivors Of COVID-19 May Hold The Key For Everyone Else — In Their Blood (Mar. 27)
  • Mount Sinai to Begin the Transfer of COVID-19 Antibodies into Critically Ill Patients (Mar. 24)
  • Antibodies From Covid-19 Survivors Could Be Used To Treat Patients, Protect Those At Risk (Mar. 13)
• Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine
  • CDC: Information for Clinicians on Therapeutic Options for COVID-19 Patients (Apr. 7)
  • Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial (Mar. 17, Note: there are possible issues with this study)
• EIDD-2801
  • Promising Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Emerges for COVID-19 from Veteran SARS Lab (Mar. 24)
• Favipiravir (Avigan)
  • Japanese flu drug 'clearly effective' in treating coronavirus, says China (Mar. 18)
  • China approves antiviral favilavir to treat coronavirus (Feb. 17)
• Interferon beta
  • A multiple sclerosis drug may speed COVID-19 recovery (May 8)
  • UK biotech Synairgen to begin COVID-19 trial of lead candidate (Mar. 18)
• Ivermectin
  • Ivermectin shows activity against COVID-19 in cell cultures (Apr. 6)
• Lopinavir and Ritonavir (Kaletra)
  • HIV drugs didn’t work as a coronavirus treatment in a clinical trial (Mar. 19)
  • FACTSHEET: AbbVie’s Response to the Coronavirus (Feb. 27)
• Remdesivir
  • The new COVID-19 drug remdesivir is here. Now what? (May 13)
  • Gilead’s remdesivir has seen success against the coronavirus. Now the company has to make enough to supply the world (Apr. 30)
  • Remdesivir is the first drug found to block the coronavirus (Apr. 29)
  • Study finds remdesivir effective against a key enzyme of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (Apr. 13)
  • CDC: Information for Clinicians on Therapeutic Options for COVID-19 Patients (Mar. 21)
  • Did an experimental drug help a U.S. coronavirus patient? (Mar. 13)
  • NIH clinical trial of remdesivir to treat COVID-19 begins (Feb. 25)
• Sarilumab (Kevzara)
  • Regeneron And Sanofi Begin Global Kevzara (Sarilumab) Clinical Trial Program In Patients With Severe Covid-19 (Mar. 16)
• Sofosbuvir with Ribavirin
  • Regeneron, Sanofi Launch Clinical Trial of Kevzara as Coronavirus Treatment (Mar. 16)
• Tocilizumab
  • Genentech moves Actemra into phase III COVID-19 trial (Mar. 19)