A new paper in Genome Biology and Evolution, indicates that while the COVID-19 virus has developed rapidly since 2019, it has done so within limited genetic channels. These genetic limits have ...

A new COVID-19 variant, BA.3.2, has been detected in 25 U.S. states, the CDC reports, with immune escape traits that may ...

Mutations in the new coronavirus could reduce the effectiveness of vaccines against it. But vaccines themselves can also drive viral mutations, depending on exactly how the shots are deployed and how ...

It’s impossible to say how the coronavirus will continue to evolve. Those changes, after all, are a result of random mutations. But there are some fundamental principles that explain why the virus has ...

Scientists studying the virus’s continuing evolution, and the body’s immune responses, hope to head off a resurgence and to better understand long Covid. By Apoorva Mandavilli Apoorva Mandavilli has ...

As omicron subvariant BA.5 continues to drive the coronavirus’ spread in the United States, I’ve been thinking about what could come next. Omicron and its offshoots have been topping the variant ...

Researchers in the United States and India have presented the first known evidence that the rollout of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination is restricting the evolutionary and immune escape ...

In the wake of findings that COVID-19 virus variants are more likely to spring from patients with weakened immune systems, leading medical experts are calling for heightened precautions in the ...

Mr. Quammen is a science writer and the author of the forthcoming book “Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus.” The Covid-19 pandemic has been a lesson in speed — the speed at which ...