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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:
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. |
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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
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
- Inovio
- Johnson & Johnson
- Moderna
- Pfizer
- University of Pittsburgh
- Regeneron
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)
- 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
- EIDD-2801
- Favipiravir (Avigan)
- Interferon beta
- Ivermectin
- Lopinavir and Ritonavir (Kaletra)
- 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)
- Sofosbuvir with Ribavirin
- Tocilizumab
Testing
- UCSB Test
- High-Tech, Low-Cost COVID Test Created Using CRISPR Protein (Apr. 29)
- Scientists have developed a faster, cheaper COVID-19 test (May 1)
- A Scalable, Easy-to-Deploy, Protocol for Cas13-Based Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Genetic Material (Apr. 21)
- General
- Many states are far short of Covid-19 testing levels needed for safe reopening, new analysis shows (Apr. 27)
- FDA greenlights first Covid-19 test with at-home sample collection (Apr. 21)
- Here’s where things stand on COVID-19 tests in the U.S. (Apr. 17)
- Saliva is more sensitive for SARS-CoV-2 detection in COVID-19 patients than nasopharyngeal swabs (Apr. 16)
- A New Statistic Reveals Why America’s COVID-19 Numbers Are Flat (Apr. 16)
- Undetected COVID-19 Cases Counted by NIH (Apr. 15)
- Thousands of coronavirus tests are going unused in US labs (Apr. 9)
- FDA Emergency Use Authorizations for In Vitro Diagnostics (updated)
- FDA fleshes out emergency guidance for coronavirus test developers (Mar. 26)
- Fast, portable tests come online to curb coronavirus pandemic (Mar. 23)
- What you need to know about coronavirus testing in the U.S. (Mar. 6)
- PCR tests
- Antibody tests
- *new* Test performance evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 serological assays (Apr. 29)
- What coronavirus antibody tests tell us — and what they don’t (Apr. 28)
- First antibody surveys draw fire for quality, bias (Apr. 24)
- Antibody surveys suggesting vast undercount of coronavirus infections may be unreliable (Apr. 21)
- Antibody surveys suggesting vast undercount of coronavirus infections may be unreliable (Apr. 21)
- Swiss researchers develop methods to sniff out coronavirus in the air (Apr. 21)
- Everything we know about coronavirus immunity and antibodies — and plenty we still don’t (Apr. 20)
- Will antibody tests for the coronavirus really change everything? (Apr. 18)
- Antibody tests suggest that coronavirus infections vastly exceed official counts (Apr. 17)
- A systematic review of antibody mediated immunity to coronaviruses: antibody kinetics, correlates of protection, and association of antibody responses with severity of disease (Apr. 14)
- In the Pipeline: Covid-19 Antibody Update (Apr. 8)
- Current COVID-19 antibody tests aren't accurate enough for mass screening, say Oxford researchers (Apr. 8)
- Hardy Diagnostic’s Rapid COVID-19 Test on Hold (Apr. 7)
- Sensitivity is 93.8%, specificity 95.6%. Sounds great, right? Well, sort of. (Apr. 2)
- How antibody tests work and could help fight the coronavirus (Mar. 27)
- Hardy Diagnostics Test Detects COVID-19 in 15 Minutes (Mar. 27)
- New blood tests for antibodies could show true scale of coronavirus pandemic (Mar. 19)
- Other tests
- *new* COVID-19 Accurately Diagnosed by AI Model (May 26)
- *new* SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in primary municipal sewage sludge as a leading indicator of COVID-19 outbreak dynamics (May 22)
- Coronavirus found in Paris sewage points to early warning system (Apr. 21)
- Rapid coronavirus test, commonly used in U.S., may miss infections in some situations (Apr. 16)
- COVID-19 Detection via New Approach, Plasmonic Sensing, Shows Promise (Apr. 15)
- COVID-19 Crisis Raises Interest in FLIR Systems’ Cameras for Sensing Body Temperature (Apr. 10)
- Abbott to ship portable, 5-minute coronavirus tests nationwide (Mar. 28; isothermal nucleic acid amplification)
- Seek Thermal Announces New Temperature Screening System To Help Make Communities Safer (Mar. 27; fever detection)
- Mount Sinai Developing an “End-to-End” Diagnostics Solution for COVID-19 That Incorporates Diagnosis, Treatment Selection, and Monitoring of Disease Course (Mar. 23)
- Accuracy
Clinical treatment
- General(includes reviews of data from early outbreaks)
- *new* Doctors express glimmers of hope as they try out new approaches against coronavirus (amy 13)
- Hospitals are using AI to predict the decline of Covid-19 patients — before knowing it works (Apr. 24)
- Finding Effective Treatments for COVID-19: Scientific Integrity and Public Confidence in a Time of Crisis (Apr. 16)
- How does COVID-19 kill? Uncertainty is hampering doctors’ ability to choose treatments (Apr. 9)
- For survivors of severe COVID-19, beating the virus is just the beginning (Apr. 8)
- COVID19 – Awake Pronation (Apr. 6)
- As the coronavirus outbreak evolves, we answer some key questions (updated Mar. 18)
- Medications
-
- Some existing drugs might fight COVID-19. One may make it worse (Apr. 30)
- New research highlights blood clot dangers of COVID-19 (Apr. 23)
- Antibiotic treatment for COVID-19 complications could fuel resistant bacteria (Apr. 16)
- Guidance for patients with IBD during the COVID-19 pandemic (Apr. 12)
- Misguided drug advice for COVID-19 (ibuprofen; Mar. 27)
- The Ibuprofen Debate Reveals the Danger of Covid-19 Rumors (Mar. 26)
- Santa Barbara local reports
- COVID-19 Update (slides, audio) by Dr. Jason Prystowsky (Mar. 18)
- Cottage Health Clinical Update Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons reviews data from China (Mar. 12)
Shortages
- Ventilator shortage
- NASA Rocket Scientists Designed a Rapid-Production Ventilator in Just 37 Days (Apr. 24)
- With ventilators running out, doctors say the machines are overused for Covid-19 (Apr. 8)
- The High-Stakes Race to Build More Ventilators (Apr. 2)
- MIT Key Ventilation Specifications (requires registration)
- MIT Emergency Ventilator (E-Vent) Project
- U.S. agencies to collaborate on wide-scale 3D printing of ventilator parts and medical supplies (Mar. 27)
- FDA authorizes CPAP machines and more as emergency ventilator alternatives (Mar. 26)
- New York will allow two patients to share a single ventilator (Mar. 26)
- Fair Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources in the Time of Covid-19 (Mar. 23)
- FDA opens up Bellerophon\'s gas therapy for COVID-19, stock rockets (nitric oxide, Mar. 20)
- Mask and PPE shortage
- FDA Emergency Use Authorizations for Personal Protective Equipment (updated)
- Strategies to Optimize the Supply of PPE and Equipment (Apr. 2)
- Decontamination and Reuse of Filtering Facepiece Respirators using Contingency and Crisis Capacity Strategies (Apr. 1)
- Printing Protection: Researchers begin 3D-printing protective gear to aid local medical facilities (Mar. 27)
- Battelle deploys decontamination system for reusing N95 masks (Mar. 30)
- Face mask shortages have sparked creative solutions. Will they work? (Mar. 27)
- N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirator Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) Process for Decontamination and Reuse (Mar. 26)
- Physician and healthcare worker shortage
- Medication shortages
Tracking
- How San Francisco plans to trace every coronavirus case and contact (Apr. 8)
- After 9/11, we gave up privacy for security. Will we make the same trade-off after Covid-19? (Apr. 8)
- The Technology That Could Free America From Quarantine (Apr. 7)
- The social distancing of America (Apr. 2)
Social distancing & behavior
- COVID-19 and Crime in Major California Cities (Apr. 7)
- Social distancing comes with psychological fallout (Mar. 29)
- When will the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing end? (Mar. 24)
- Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare demand (Mar. 16)
- Social distancing, not travel bans, crucial to limiting coronavirus’ spread (Mar. 13)
Mythbusting
- Falsified medical products, including in vitro diagnostics, that
claim to prevent, detect, treat or cure COVID-19 (Mar. 31) - Snopes: The Coronavirus Collection
- FactCheck.org: A Guide to Our Coronavirus Coverage
- TruthorFiction: COVID-19 search results
General virology
What you can do
- You can help fight the coronavirus. All you need is a computer (Mar. 25)
- Helpful Engineering: Open source group of 3,000+ members looking for solutions to COVID19. Uses Slack and Google Docs. Projects may include 3D printing to solve equipment shortages
- Ultimaker 3D printing "Let\'s do our part" project