Cold and flu season is nearly here, with flu activity typically peaking between the months of December and February. But according to a recent poll conducted by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, around 44 percent of Americans are still unsure if they’ll get this year’s flu vaccine. Given the fact that the Delta variant …
Will You Need a COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Shot?
On September 22, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a single booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for specific communities. This booster dose is based on data that shows that a booster shot increases the immune response in previously vaccinated individuals. The results are promising, but you may be wondering, “Will …
When COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Doesn’t Meet the Need, Innovations Emerge
It is hard to believe that within one year of the declaration of the pandemic, as many as eleven COVID-19 vaccines received emergency authorized use. Despite producing enough of these vaccines to administer 6.7 billion doses by the end of September 2021, more than 65 percent of the world’s population remains unvaccinated. A variety of …
COVID-19 Symptoms in the Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated
Earlier this month, the United States reached a crucial milestone: Per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, 55 percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. That percentage includes approximately 182.5 million Americans who have received two doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of …
How SARS-CoV-2 Spreads Infection So Efficiently | Part 3 – Invasion of the Variants
In the first two blogs of this three-part series on how SARS-CoV-2 spreads, QPS has covered how the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein can attach to and invade host cells more easily than other coronaviruses, and how the viral RNA can easily enter a host cell and replicate itself. In this third and final part of the …
How SARS-CoV-2 Spreads Infection so Efficiently | Part 2 – Hijacking Host Cells
Like most viruses, SARS-CoV-2 infects its hosts by entering and “hijacking” the operations of a host cell. A significant amount of the research on COVID-19 has focused on how the virus’s surface spike protein works as a means to develop treatment and preventive measures like the vaccines. But that isn’t the only area of interest …
When Will COVID End?
Eighteen months have passed since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The pandemic has upended society as we know it, shuttering businesses, disrupting supply chains, and dramatically impacting our way of life. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that someone might ask: When will COVID end? The answer …
How SARS-CoV-2 Spreads Infection So Efficiently | Part 1 – The Spike Protein
As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads throughout the world, the scientific community learns more about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and plans to use that information to develop new prevention and treatment options. Much of the research focuses on how SARS-CoV-2 enters cells to infect people, and why this virus is more adept at infection than its predecessors. …
How the Delta Variant May Impact COVID-19 Travel Restrictions
About 2,238,462 travelers passed through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints on August 1, 2021. Per TSA data, that’s nearly three times the number of travelers logged a year ago on August 1, 2020. The data doesn’t lie: With about 60 percent of the country at least partially vaccinated against COVID-19, Americans are undoubtedly feeling safer …
The SARS-CoV-2 Jump from Bats to Humans and What It Tells Us
Scientists involved in the search for the source of SARS-CoV-2 have pointed to a “jump” from bats occurring in and around Wuhan, China. Whether the virus moved from bats into people directly or if it traveled through an intermediate species was a subject of great debate in the scientific community. Previous forms of coronaviruses, such …
