Coronavirus

A silhouette of a person in black on a red background. The person is holding a phone that reads "COVID-19" and the back of the head is open, with many different symbols flowing out, including a globe, a hospital, a needle, a vial, a mask, the dollar sign, and a TV screen that reads "Fake News."

Why COVID misinformation continues to spread

Penn Medicine’s Anish Agarwal discusses why false claims about the virus and vaccines arise and persist, plus what he hopes will come from NIH-funded research he and Penn Engineering’s Sharath Chandra Guntuku have recently begun.

Michele W. Berger ・

masked mother with baby on bed

Pregnancy, childbirth, the pandemic, and stress

For two years, the interdisciplinary Project IGNITE has followed 1,000 pregnant individuals and their children to learn more about what role environmental factors play in preterm birth, poor pregnancy outcomes, and social and emotional development.

Michele W. Berger ・

A gloved hand holds a petri dish filled with green colored tablets. Plants in containers are shown in the background

Chewing to curb COVID

Penn Medicine will conduct a new clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a chewing gum designed by School of Dental Medicine researchers to trap SARS-CoV-2 in the saliva.

Katherine Unger Baillie ・



In the News


CNN

After four years with COVID-19, the U.S. is settling into a new approach to respiratory virus season

Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center says that the sense of urgency around vaccination has faded as attention on respiratory viruses wanes.

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CBS News

The mRNA miracle workers

Nobel laureates Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman of the Perelman School of Medicine appear on “Sunday Morning” to discuss their careers, their mRNA research, and the COVID-19 vaccines.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Paul Offit looks back on COVID-19, misinformation, and how public health lost the public’s trust in new book

“Tell Me When It’s Over,” a new book by Paul Offit of the Perelman School of Medicine, chronicles the initial years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the mishaps of public health agencies. Recent surveys by the Annenberg Public Policy Center find that mistrust of vaccines has continued to grow through last fall.

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Minnesota Public Radio

Review of COVID death stats finds likely undercount in official numbers

A paper co-authored by Penn researchers found that COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. were likely undercounted in official statistics during the first 30 months of the pandemic.

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Boston Globe

You should still get the COVID-19 vaccine. The Nobel Prize winner who helped discover it explains why

Drew Weissman of the Perelman School of Medicine, who won the Nobel Prize along with Katalin Karikó, discusses the backlash against vaccinations and whether to receive the latest COVID vaccine.

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The Hill

Flu surges in the Southeast

A survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that more than a third of people are concerned about either themselves or one of their family members contracting either the flu, COVID-19, or RSV.

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