COVID-19 Basics

There are two kinds of tests for COVID-19: Viral tests are used when you feel sick to find out if you have COVID-19. These tests use a tool called real-time...

A recent report from WHO looked at all the symptoms people experienced when they were sick with COVID-19. About 14% of patients (1 in 7) had a sore throat.  Sore...

When the coronavirus infects a person, it invades their cells to make more viruses. These new viruses are expelled or “shed” into the rest of the patient’s body. These viruses...

We’re not yet sure who is immune to COVID-19. But our best guess is that most people who recover from COVID-19 will be protected from a second infection, at least...

Isolation and quarantine are two buzzwords associated with the novel coronavirus. They sound similar--so what’s the difference? Both are public health tools to protect people from getting sick with COVID-19....

Contact tracing is a public health effort that has been used successfully to track and help contain the spread of other infectious diseases including SARS and Ebola. So how does...

Most tests for the novel coronavirus use a nasopharyngeal swab. The swab is basically a big Q-tip. The swab is stuck in your nose, all the way back to the...

Convalescent plasma is the cell-free liquid part of blood (plasma) drawn from people who have recovered (convalesced) from COVID-19. It contains antibodies that help fight the virus off.  We’ve used...

It can be confusing to interpret all of the numbers people are using to describe the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are the three basic types of numbers officials are measuring and...

What is the typical timeline from exposure to recovery, and for how long are COVID-19 patients contagious? Here’s what we know so far about the natural history of COVID-19. In...