COVID-19

Don't Panic Over Waning Antibodies. Here's Why.

A health care worker places a bandaid on the arm of a man who has just been vaccinated.

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

Since the Delta variant became predominant in the United States on July 7, both scientists and the media alike have been full of mixed messages ("breakthrough infections rare"; "breakthrough infections common"; "vaccines still work"; "vaccines losing their effectiveness") but – if we remember our infectious diseases history- one thing remains clear: immunity is the only way to get through a pandemic.

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Monica Gandhi
Monica Gandhi MD, MPH is a Professor of Medicine and Associate Chief in the Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is also the Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and the Medical Director of the HIV Clinic ("Ward 86") at San Francisco General Hospital. Her research focuses on HIV and women and adherence measurement in HIV treatment and prevention. She is now conducting research on mitigation strategies for COVID-19.
Security workers with detection dogs walking in airport terminal

Security workers walk with detection dogs in an airport terminal.

Viacheslav Lakobchuk/Adobe Stock

Asher is eccentric and inquisitive. He loves an audience, likes keeping busy, and howls to be let through doors. He is a six-year-old working Cocker Spaniel, who, with five other furry colleagues, has now been trained to sniff body odor samples from humans to detect COVID-19 infections.

As the Delta variant and other new versions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerge, public health agencies are once again recommending masking while employers contemplate mandatory vaccination. While PCR tests remain the "gold standard" of COVID-19 tests, they can take hours to flag infections. To accelerate the process, scientists are turning to a new testing tool: sniffer dogs.

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Puja Changoiwala
Puja Changoiwala is an award-winning journalist and author based in Mumbai. She writes about the intersections of gender, crime, technology, social justice and human rights in India. She tweets @cpuja.
What to Know about the Fast-Spreading Delta Variant
Adobe Stock: bakhtiarzein

A highly contagious form of the coronavirus known as the Delta variant is spreading rapidly and becoming increasingly prevalent around the world. First identified in India in December, Delta has now been identified in 111 countries.

In the United States, the variant now accounts for 83% of sequenced COVID-19 cases, said Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a July 20 Senate hearing. In May, Delta was responsible for just 3% of U.S. cases. The World Health Organization projects that Delta will become the dominant variant globally over the coming months.

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Emily Mullin
Emily Mullin is a science and biotech journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, National Geographic and Smithsonian Magazine.