variants

Enlarge / A passenger wearing protective clothing amid the COVID-19 pandemic waits to board a domestic flight at Shanghai Pudong International Airport on January 3. Although China has largely abandoned COVID-19 case reporting, evidence of its massive wave of infection readily shows up in airports outside its borders. On a December 26 flight from the…

Enlarge / An elderly female patient with COVID-19 is treated at No. 2 People's Hospital of Fuyang City in China. With China's zero-COVID policy abruptly scrapped last month, the pandemic virus is now ripping through the country's population, and health experts are bracing for a wave of devastation as peak transmission shifts from urban centers…

Enlarge / US President Joe Biden receives the latest COVID-19 booster shot in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, in Washington, DC, on October 25, 2022. The Biden administration is struggling to refocus the country's attention back on the pandemic as the fall booster campaign drags…

Enlarge / Transmission electron micrograph of a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles (UK B.1.1.7), isolated from a patient sample and cultivated in cell culture. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. New omicron coronavirus sublineages are finally threatening BA.5's dominance, as many experts fear the US is on…

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesushe, the head of the World Health Organization, speaks during a media conference at an EU Africa summit in Brussels on Feb. 18, 2022. Johanna Geron/AP hide caption toggle caption Johanna Geron/AP Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesushe, the head of the World Health Organization, speaks during a media conference at an EU Africa summit in…

Enlarge / A vial containing Moderna COVID-19 booster vaccine at a vaccination center. The type of COVID-19 booster dose you get later this year could depend on where you live. Vaccine maker Moderna is working up two omicron-targeting boosters for different countries. If the company's plans pan out, it will mark the first time that…

Enlarge / Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research within the Food and Drug Administration, testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on the federal coronavirus response on Capitol Hill on March 18, 2021, in Washington, DC. On Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration advised…

Enlarge / A COVID-19 testing tent stands in Times Square on April 27, 2022, in New York City. Omicron coronavirus subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are now accounting for an estimated 35 percent of US cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The subvariants are on a course to reach dominance at a…

Enlarge / A long COVID patient sits with her daughter in her wheelchair while receiving a saline infusion at her Maryland home on Friday, May 27, 2022. Among adults vaccinated against COVID-19, the odds of developing long COVID amid the omicron wave were about 20 percent to 50 percent lower than during the delta period,…

Despite early suggestions that the omicron coronavirus subvariant BA.1 would be mild, a massive wave of infections in January caused spikes in hospitalizations and more excess deaths than earlier variants. And subsequent omicron subvariants don't appear to be easing up. According to a preprint study involving data from more than 1.5 million people in the…