Current COVID vaccines require major overhaul due to virus escape

As Omicron persists, consensus grows for abandoning the ancestral coronavirus strain to improve immune responses
China braces for new Covid wave with up to 65 million weekly cases

XBB is expected to result in 40 million infections per week by the end of May before peaking at 65 million a month later. This comes nearly six months after Beijing dismantled its Covid Zero curbs, allowing the virus to spread rapidly among the country’s 1.4 billion residents.
Halo Therapeutics closes Seed B fundraising to enter clinical trials

Cardiff, Wales, 17 May 2023 – Clinical trials of an easy-to-use home therapeutic treatment for SARS- CoV-2 (coronaviruses) are underway following a £1.5 million investment led by the Development Bank of Wales alongside Science Angel Syndicate (SAS) members and the KBA Group.
Birx: US not doing enough to prevent another pandemic like COVID

Deborah Birx, a physician who served as former President Trump’s coronavirus response coordinator, said on Tuesday that the U.S. isn’t doing enough to prevent another pandemic like COVID-19.
William Hanage on COVID lessons we haven’t learned

The pandemic has progressed through a now-familiar pattern the past several months, with the latest variant — XBB.1.5 — infecting a lot of people in December and January before starting to fade
COVID’s future: mini-waves rather than seasonal surges

Three years after the start of the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 shows no signs of settling into a seasonal pattern of spread, like influenza has.
COVID will eventually evade one of the few treatments for those infected and could cause deaths to ‘easily double,’ former White House advisor Deborah Birx says

During her time as White House COVID response coordinator under former President Donald Trump, from March 2020 through January 2021, Birx oversaw the development and widespread distribution of COVID tests, treatments, and vaccines.
Top scientists warn ‘the next pandemic is coming and we’re not ready’

Sir John Bell and Sir David King among leading scientists to argue UK is no better prepared than it was in 2020, as new variant in India causes concern
Arcturus: What do we know about the new Covid variant?

XBB.1.16 strain detected in 22 countries so far and is driving up infection rate in India
What is known about new Covid variant XBB.1.5?

A new Covid sub-variant is causing some concern in the US, where it is spreading rapidly.
Some cases have also been recorded in the UK, so what do you need to know about XBB.1.5?