EurekAlert! COVID-19 Online Newsroom - Peer-reviewed Research

Peer-reviewed Research

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 28-Jan-2026 19:11 ET (29-Jan-2026 00:11 GMT/UTC)

Study finds most college students rebounded after pandemic, but to varying degrees

Michigan State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research from Michigan State University finds that in the four years after the COVID-19 pandemic upended campus life, the majority of college students successfully bounced back. Students experienced rising life satisfaction and declining loneliness and, surprisingly, even a fonder remembrance of online classes from the early days of the pandemic.

Journal: Personality and Individual Differences

De-stigmatizing self-reported data in health care research

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Professor Nisreen Alwan calls to de-stigmatize self-reported data in health care research, highlighting Long COVID as one setting where it has unique strengths over 'objective' data.

Journal: PLOS Global Public Health

Scientists say these two viruses may become the next public health threats

UF Health
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Two pathogens originating in animals are primed to become public health issues if they evolve to become easily transmitted human-to-human.

Journal: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Funder: U.S. Department of Agriculture, American Lung Association, U.S. Department of Agriculture, University of Texas Medical Branch

New platform could develop vaccines faster than ever before

University of Virginia Health System
Peer-Reviewed Publication

“Goverments and others have stated that a new vaccine for a pandemic threat should be able to be made in 100 days, but we think that with our platform we can make a new vaccine for testing in 3 weeks,” the developer says.

Journal: Vaccines

Changing land use can increase threat of animal‑to‑human disease spread, Stirling study reveals

University of Stirling
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Deforestation, farming, fast‑growing cities and fragmented habitats heighten the risk of zoonotic diseases such as Covid‑19 and malaria, especially those spread by mosquitoes, rodents and bats, spreading.

Journal: Nature Sustainability
Funder: EU Horizon RESTOREID (Restoring ecosystems to stop the threat of re-emerging infectious diseases) project

Preparedness for future pandemics: MERS vaccine candidate shows long-lasting immune response

German Center for Infection Research
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study has shown for the first time that an experimental vaccine against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) induces a stable and functional immune response in humans that persists for at least two years after a booster vaccination. MERS is listed by the World Health Organization as a priority pathogen (WHO R&D Blueprint for Epidemics) for which vaccines and therapies are urgently needed. The results mark an important step toward an effective MERS vaccine and strengthen the scientific basis for pandemic preparedness. The long-term clinical study was conducted by an international research team from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and was funded by DZIF and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The findings were published recently in the journal Nature Communications.

Journal: Nature Communications

Long COVID brain fog far more common in US than India, other nations

Northwestern University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Patients with long COVID-19 in the U.S. report far higher rates of brain fog, depression and cognitive symptoms than patients in countries such as India and Nigeria, according to a large international study led by Northwestern Medicine.

The authors note that higher reported symptom burden in the U.S. may reflect lower stigma and greater access to neurological and mental health care, rather than more severe disease.

Journal: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

Altered brain connection found in people with ME/CFS and Long COVID

Griffith University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

People with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and Long COVID experience a disruption to their brain connectivity during a mentally demanding task.

Journal: Journal of Translational Medicine

COVID-19 viral fragments shown to target and kill specific immune cells in UCLA-led study

California NanoSystems Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A UCLA-led research team demonstrated that when human immune enzymes break up the spike protein of the virus behind COVID-19, some resulting fragments have the ability to punch holes in membranes of human immune cells.

Those fragments target and kill specific cells based on their shape — the same types of sentinel cells and killer cells depleted in severe COVID-19.

Fragments of protein from the omicron variant showed less activity against the immune cells, a finding that may account for why it’s less dangerous than other strains.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: American Heart Association, National Natural Science Foundation of China

UC San Diego study cites link between mental health and long COVID in older women

University of California - San Diego
Peer-Reviewed Publication

UC San Diego researchers find older women with both depression and anxiety face a 78% higher risk of long COVID, despite similar infection rates. People experiencing mental health illnesses are vulnerable to other diseases and may have trouble following public health guidelines.

Journal: Menopause
Funder: NIH/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, NIH/National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Kuwait Ministry of Health researchers demonstrate SARS-CoV-2 virus inactivation / destruction using focused sound waves

Ministry of Health
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from the Ministry of Health in Kuwait have demonstrated that high-frequency sound waves can functionally inactivate SARS-CoV-2, offering a promising non-drug antiviral approach. Published in Viruses (MDPI), the study showed a significant reduction in viral load through increased PCR cycle threshold (Ct) values—indicating measurable viral inactivation rather than just structural damage. Led by Dr. Almunther Alhasawi and supported by KFAS, the research opens the door to innovative acoustic-based strategies that could extend to other emerging viral threats.

Journal: Viruses
Funder: Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS)

HKUMed develops novel live-attenuated vaccine that blocks coronavirus transmission with a single intranasal dose

The University of Hong Kong
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A research team at the LKS Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), has developed a novel live-attenuated vaccine candidate, cb1, capable of generating broad immunity against a wide range of beta-coronaviruses with a single intranasal dose. The vaccine not only prevents severe disease, but also effectively blocks viral transmission in animal models, offering a promising strategy for pandemic preparedness against future coronavirus threats. The groundbreaking study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Blood test detects lingering lung damage after COVID 19

University of Leicester
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study into the long-term health impacts of coronavirus, led by experts from the University of Leicester, Imperial College London and University College London, has found changes in the blood after COVID-19 that might pinpoint patients at risk of ongoing lung disease

Journal: EBioMedicine
Funder: NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre

Primary care home visits for older adults declined after payment policy changes and COVID-19 in Ontario, Canada

American Academy of Family Physicians
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In Ontario, primary care home visits, which help older adults who are homebound or have difficulty getting to a clinic, increased during the 2010s but declined after a 2019 policy change reduced payment incentives and the COVID-19 pandemic began. This study examined how primary care home visits for adults aged 65 years and older changed from 2014 to 2024.

Journal: The Annals of Family Medicine

Double trouble: Tobacco use and Long COVID

Osaka Metropolitan University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Osaka Metropolitan University researchers investigated the relationship between Long COVID symptoms and smoking by tobacco product type. The researchers found that certain symptoms correlated with different forms of smoking.

Journal: Scientific Reports

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