Larry Corey, MD

If you’re still curious about COVID-19, then good for you. Many people apparently have stopped paying attention, but COVID-19 remains a relevant topic. Here’s where things stand this fall with viral variants and our countermeasures. We are starting a period of the Omicron epidemic in which the numbering is no longer B1, B2, B3, B4, B5. We’re into the Omicron... Read More

When can we declare the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic over? For some people, a battle is over when it is clearly won or lost. Our fight with COVID-19 doesn’t fit into such tidy categories. The term endemic, at least in epidemiology, means chronic. It’s a constant presence, usually of an infectious organism, at some steady level. If a virus is endemic, that... Read More

The Omicron wave has been shocking. We in the virology community knew the SARS-CoV-2 virus had an exceptional ability to mutate, but the pace of its evolution was surprising. We were just as surprised by the even-faster speed by which this variant spread. Omicron became the dominant variant almost two years into the pandemic because it’s more transmissible and able... Read More

The news is all about Delta, Delta, Delta, for good reason. The variants are forcing us to ask and answer, again, a whole set of uncomfortable questions. Sobering findings of the past few weeks have shaken both the American and scientific psyche. People have had to re-assess their perceptions about the COVID-19 vaccines, and the re-emergence of an epidemic many... Read More

The HIV pandemic, and COVID-19 pandemic, are intersecting. The relationship between the two conditions is creating an epidemiological synergy that is starting to translate into additional misery for humankind. If we can better understand this phenomenon, we can think more clearly about how to better protect the most vulnerable populations among us – people with HIV, and millions of others... Read More

As fully vaccinated citizens in our country and around the globe begin to dip their toes in the waters of a post-vaccination world, there are two groups that deserve greater consideration: immunosuppressed or immunocompromised people. This is not a small group of people. Estimates are that about 6.2 percent of adults ages 18-64 in the US are living with weakened... Read More

Clinical trials have given us a wealth of information about the effectiveness, and safety profile, of vaccines for COVID-19. But the work of gathering evidence, and weighing the results in the context of an ongoing pandemic, isn’t done. The importance of developing population-based effectiveness and safety profiles associated with a mass vaccination campaign — the sort of deep datasets that... Read More

When there aren’t enough doses of vaccine to go around against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and you’re trying to protect as many people as possible as fast as possible, what’s the right thing to do? Does it make sense to take the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and give them as single shots, in order to stretch out our existing supplies and... Read More

The mRNA vaccines from Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna have understandably dominated the news, but this past week was Johnson & Johnson’s turn in the spotlight with another important contribution to the COVID-19 vaccination effort. The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee recommended, and the FDA authorized the vaccine, based on results from the 44,000-person Operation Warp Speed–sponsored ENSEMBLE clinical trial evaluating... Read More

For about a month, we were lulled into thinking we had turned the corner and were winning the battle against the virus. With 95% effectiveness in preventing COVID-19 illness and nearly 100% efficacy in preventing severe disease, we just needed to mass produce these wonderful mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna. Then we could bring an end... Read More

On Dec. 2, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article coauthored by many prominent medical scientists, including physicians, who advocated for extending the time in which volunteers in the placebo group enrolled in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 clinical trials should be followed.   Essentially, they are arguing that the study volunteers – people who sacrificed for the... Read More

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are likely to secure Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) from the FDA by Christmas. These are amazing gifts of science. They also arrive with high expectations from a weary public, especially since the clinical trials of these mRNA vaccines indicate near-complete protection from severe disease. These first two vaccines arrive at the most tumultuous time yet... Read More

[Editor’s Note: a version of this article was first published on Nov. 13 on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. —LT ] The COVID-19 Operation Warp Speed (OWS) trials have taken some criticism in the medical press, and lay press, for evaluating what some consider to be “trivial” characteristics of mild COVID-19 disease. Some are arguing that it would... Read More