EurekAlert! COVID-19 Online Newsroom - Latest News Releases

Latest News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 8-Jan-2026 03:11 ET (8-Jan-2026 08:11 GMT/UTC)

Durability of 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccines against JN.1 subvariants

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: The updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccines provided effective protection, particularly against severe disease, although their effectiveness waned over time. Effectiveness against different subvariants was similar.

Journal: JAMA Internal Medicine

Psilocybin plus mindfulness shows promise for healthcare worker depression

University of Utah Health
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Nearly half (46%) of healthcare workers who received psilocybin and meditation techniques were free of depression at 2 weeks, compared to just 8% who only did meditation.

Journal: PLOS Medicine
Funder: Heffter Research Institute, NIH/National Institutes of Health, NIH/National Institutes of Health, NIH/National Institutes of Health

New report urges governments around the world to achieve “Digital Transformation”

Association for Computing Machinery
Reports and Proceedings

The Association for Computing Machinery’s global Technology Policy Council has released “TechBrief: Government Digital Transformation.” It is the latest in a series of TechBriefs—short technical bulletins that present scientifically grounded perspectives on the impact and policy implications of specific technological developments in computing.

‘Chronic lung-transplant rejection has been a black box.’ New study gives answers, drug targets.

Northwestern University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

More than 50% of lung-transplant recipients experience a rejection of their new lung within five years of receiving it, yet the reason why this is such a prevalent complication has remained a medical mystery.

Now, a new Northwestern Medicine study has found that, following transplant and in chronic disease states, abnormal cells emerge and “conversations” between them drives the development of lung damage and transplant rejection.

These findings not only help answer why rejection occurs, but they also have spurred immediate exploration of new drugs to treat transplant rejection and other lung-scarring diseases.

Journal: JCI Insight
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health

Study finds COVID-19 mRNA vaccine sparks immune response to fight cancer

University of Florida
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study in Nature reveals that patients with advanced lung or skin cancer who received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy drugs lived significantly longer than those who did not get the vaccine, researchers have found.

Journal: Nature

Vietnam’s sound decision

University of California - Riverside
Book Announcement

In her book “Sonic Socialism: Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi” (University of California Press, 2025), Christina Schwenkel, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, explores how the Vietnamese government used both old and new media technologies to inform, regulate, and connect people during the pandemic.

Changes in colorectal cancer screening modalities among insured individuals

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: Among privately insured individuals, the use of colonoscopy and fecal immunochemical tests decreased after the COVID-19 pandemic while stool DNA test use increased, with differences by sex, area-level socioeconomic status, and metropolitan area residence.

Journal: JAMA Network Open

COVID-19: Vitamin D levels fell during pandemic

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Routine data from laboratories reveal a decline in vitamin D levels during the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in older women and urban dwellers.

Journal: Nature Communications

Effectiveness of colchicine for the treatment of long COVID

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial, among adults with long COVID, colchicine did not improve functional capacity, respiratory function, or inflammatory markers. These findings underscore the need to explore alternative therapeutic approaches for long COVID.

Journal: JAMA Internal Medicine

Building stronger health systems saves lives, Madagascar experiment shows

Harvard Medical School
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study measuring the impact of this data-driven health strengthening project conclusively demonstrates success. Infant, child, maternal, and overall deaths fell, even in the face of catastrophic damage from one of the strongest cyclones ever recorded, ongoing political turmoil, and deadly outbreaks of COVID-19, plague, malaria, and measles. Families in the district used more health services, especially for mothers and children, and barriers to care such as distance and cost became less severe.

Journal: PLOS Medicine

ESMO 2025: mRNA-based COVID vaccines generate improved responses to immunotherapy

University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Patients with cancer who received mRNA-based COVID vaccines within 100 days of starting immune checkpoint therapy were twice as likely to be alive three years after beginning treatment, according to a new study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Journal: Nature

Study finds COVID-19 mRNA vaccine sparks immune response to fight cancer

University of Florida
Reports and Proceedings

Patients with advanced lung or skin cancer who received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of starting immunotherapy drugs lived significantly longer than those who did not get the vaccine, researchers have found.

Meeting: ESMO Congress 2025

At least eight bat species commute or forage over pig farms in Northern Italy

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

At least eight bat species commute or forage over pig farms in Northern Italy, and the frequent absence of physical barriers and biosafety measures preventing contact between bats or bat feces and pigs could increase exposure risks to the diverse coronaviruses that circulate in these species

Journal: PLOS One

First-trimester mRNA COVID-19 vaccination and risk of major congenital anomalies

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: In this cohort study of pregnancies exposed to messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccines in the first trimester, exposure was not associated with an increased risk of any major congenital malformations, overall, by organ group, or by individual major congenital malformation, supporting the safety of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in early pregnancy.

Journal: JAMA Network Open

Type 1 diabetes increased among young people during the pandemic

Lund University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an unexpected increase in the number of cases of type 1 diabetes in Sweden, particularly among children under five and young adult men. The infection accelerated the onset of diabetes among children between the ages of five and nine.

Journal: Diabetologia
Funder: Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Swedish Research Council, Vinnova, Child Diabetes Foundation, Sweden, Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research

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