NEIDL in the News
Merck’s Covid Pill Is Authorized for High-Risk Adults
Original article from The New York Times By Rebecca Robbins & Carl Zimmer. December 23, 2021 The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday authorized a second antiviral pill for Covid but said it should not be preferred over other treatments. The F.D.A. cleared the pill, developed by Merck and known as molnupiravir, More
On college campuses, Omicron is fueling more stress for students as it causes another round of closures
Original article from The Boston Globe By Laura Krantz. December 22, 2021 The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is compounding pressure on college students and administrators, prompting some to announce at least a temporary return to remote learning in January at the same time that many students are feeling more stressed... More
Mass. experts urge mask use to slow COVID-19 surge, prevent hospital overcrowding
Original article from 7 News Boston By Jonathan Hall. December 16, 2021 Vaccines continue to be the “best defense” against COVID-19, but with the omicron variant threatening to drive cases, if not necessarily severe disease, to new heights, hospital and medical experts said Thursday that additional steps like mask-wearing may be... More
Massachusetts should reinstate mask mandate, Boston University professor says in COVID oversight hearing
Original article from Mass Live By Alison Kuznitz. December 16, 2021 Massachusetts should temporarily reintroduce a statewide mask mandate, a Boston University infectious diseases specialist testified on Thursday to state lawmakers as she outlined the alarming transmissibility of the new Omicron coronavirus variant. Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, an associate professor at the Boston... More
Colleges consider more restrictions as Omicron outbreaks increase, but concerns about student mental health give pause
Original article from The Boston Globe By Laura Krantz. December 15, 2021 A few months ago, college leaders had hoped the spring semester would herald relaxed COVID protocols on campus, but with the arrival of the Omicron variant in the United States, those plans are on hold and more restrictions are... More
BU Scientists Are Prepared to Detect Omicron—and Other Variants
Original article from The Brink By Kat J. McAlpine. December 8, 2021 BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) has been monitoring COVID-19 variants from BU and Boston Medical Center tests since February When will the coronavirus variant known as Omicron arrive at BU? Although it’s hard to predict, it seems like... More
Wastewater Helps Cities Detect Community Spread of COVID Variants Like Omicron
Original article from Newsweek By Thomas Kika. December 7, 2021 Major cities in the U.S. are turning to a unique tactic to detect and track the community spread of COVID-19 variants like Omicron: Wastewater. On Monday, officials in Houston, Texas, confirmed the city's first case of Omicron in a fully vaccinated patient... More
Southern Africa is not a hotbed of variants — it’s just very good at sequencing and spotting them
Original article from Business Insider By Hilary Brueck. November 30, 2021 Last week, scientists in South Africa put the world on notice. Omicron is here. The announcement, on Wednesday, that virus-chasers in that country had found a new variant with dozens of fresh mutations, sent alarm bells through the halls of the... More
The Omicron Variant Is a Mystery. Here’s How Science Will Solve It
Original article from WIRED By WIRED Staff. December 1, 2021 So far, panic about the new Covid variant has outpaced actual information. Here’s what scientists around the world are trying to uncover. Starting last Friday, the race was on—between a virus and information about it. And for a while, the information moved... More
Omicron Variant: “A Little Too Much Hype, Saying This Is the Next Scary Thing”
Original article from The Brink By Kat J. McAlpine. November 30, 2021 Infectious disease experts on whether Omicron’s arrival should influence our outlook and behavior, and how BU will prepare for, and detect, it The new coronavirus variant—first detected in South Africa, and named Omicron by the World Health Organization—has stirred up... More
With COVID-19 Booster Shots Recommended for All US Adults, Infectious Disease Experts Weigh In
Original article from The Brink By Kat J. McAlpine. November 24, 2021 The cold weather is forcing people to spend more time indoors, holiday travel is ramping up, and a significant surge of COVID-19 infections is hitting the American Midwest and Northeast regions particularly hard. So it’s perhaps no surprise that... More
You Should Be Afraid of the Next ‘Lab Leak’
Original article from The New York Times Magazine By Jon Gertner. November 23, 2021 Covid might not have come out of a medical research lab, but it raises some urgent questions about how those facilities operate. The National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories is a seven-story concrete fortress in Boston’s South End, hemmed... More
The new coronavirus variant known as Omicron has the world on edge: Here’s what we know
Original article from The Boston Globe By Martin Finucane. November 26, 2021 It’s not the news that anybody weary of the long slog of the coronavirus pandemic wanted to hear while trying to relax the day after Thanksgiving. But a new and potentially dangerous variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been... More
Ask The Doctors: Are we headed into another surge?
Original article from WBUR By Jamie Bologna & Tiziana Dearing. November 16, 2021 And just like that, it seems we're on an upswing. Over the weekend, the Commonwealth marked 24 new COVID deaths, and more than 5,200 new infections. That number — 5,200 — marks a more than 1,200 case increase from the... More
Therapeutics and the part they play in the fight against COVID
Original article from WBUR By Stephano Kotsonis & Meghna Chakrabarti. November 15, 2021 Vaccines are still the first, best way to end the pandemic. But can treatments like monoclonal antibodies and Pfizer’s new antiviral pill help in the fight? "If you can have something by mouth that can quickly be taken and... More
8 lingering questions about the new Covid pills from Merck and Pfizer
Original article from STAT By STAT Staff. November 15, 2021 The past two months have brought extremely good news in the fight against Covid-19. Two different oral treatments have proved effective at both preventing people newly diagnosed with Covid-19 from entering the hospital and from dying. “We’re accelerating our path out of... More
Covid Pills May Save Lives, But They Won’t End the Pandemic
Original article from Bloomberg By Cynthia Koons, Emma Court, & Robert Langreth. November 11, 2021 While new treatments from Pfizer and Merck have the potential to keep people out of the hospital, vaccines are still the best weapon for fighting Covid. The promise of new Covid-19 pills from Pfizer Inc. More
Who Owns the Vaccine? A Conversation With Moderna’s Stéphane Bancel and Dr. Nahid Bhadelia
Original article from WIRED By Brent Rose. November 18, 2021 The roadblocks to getting the Covid-19 vaccine into poorer countries partially come down to a contentious patent dispute. On Tuesday the New York Times dropped a bombshell report about patents around Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine. After a four-year partnership with the US National... More
Experimental Pfizer pill prevents Covid hospitalizations and deaths
Original article from STAT By Matthew Herper. November 5, 2021 An experimental antiviral pill developed by Pfizer reduced the risk of death and hospitalization by 89% in patients who were newly diagnosed with Covid-19 in a large study, the company said Friday. The development of oral medicines that can be used to... More
Is it COVID, the flu or a common cold? How to tell the difference
Original article from CNET By Dashia Star. November 2, 2021 Flu season is here and the pandemic is still ongoing. Here's what to know about the overlapping symptoms. If a cough, congestion, sneezing fits or scratchy throat weren't enough, trying to figure out whether you're sick with COVID-19, a flu virus or... More