Other scientists saw that SARS-CoV-2 made the body make less of the male hormone testosterone and considered that SARS-CoV-2 could cause sterility the way the mumps and other viruses do. A sterile man cannot father children naturally.
Scientists saw that more people died from COVID-19 in places with large amounts of air pollution. One team of scientists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg looked at air pollution information from satellites and statistics on COVID-19 deaths in Italy, France, Germany and Spain and saw that places with large amounts of nitrogen dioxide pollution had more people die from COVID-19. Nitrogen dioxide can damage the lungs.
There are many ways to stop the spread of COVID-19. Washing hands for 20 seconds or more will help kill the viruses. Try not to touch your own face - eyes, nose, or mouth - with unwashed hands.
People should stay away from crowded places if they can, because being close to big groups of people can easily spread the virus. In fact, many health organizations say that people should stay at least two metres from another person.
Many people wear face masks in public to stop getting the virus, and it is recommended by countries such as China, Hong Kong and Thailand. Most face masks work best to stop you giving the virus to other people. When people with the virus wear masks they give it to less people. One study published in "Cell" showed that wearing a mask pulled down to cover the mouth but not the nose was not good. People usually breathe through their noses and not their mouths. Scientists found that nose cells were more likely to have virus in them than throat cells. Because of this, the scientists said, breathing out through the nose was more likely to spread the virus than breathing out through the mouth, so people should wear masks that cover their noses.
One study in China found the virus in semen from men with COVID-19. The scientists wondered if men could give COVID-19 to partners in sexual intercourse.
Experts recommend testing people for COVID-19. Some people may have SARS-CoV-2 in their bodies but not feel sick right away. These people can spread the virus to others.
There are two types of tests. Viral tests show whether a person has the virus right then. Antibody tests show whether the person had the virus and has since recovered.
A group of scientists from Hokkaido University developed an antibody test that could detect avian flu antibodies in only 20 minutes. They said their test could be changed to detect SARS-CoV-2.
The virus that causes COVID-19 is new to humans. This means that there are no medicines that can stop people from getting COVID-19 or that can treat them if they do get it. Scientists are working hard to invent and test new medicines. Some scientists are trying to invent a new vaccine which would stop people from getting sick with COVID-19. Other scientists are testing medicines used for other diseases to see if those medicines make people get less sick if they do get COVID-19.
In April 2020, the group Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) said that scientists were looking at 115 compounds that could be a vaccine. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says it takes 18 months to test a vaccine to make sure it works and is safe.
In April 2020, scientists from the University of Pittsburgh said they had made a vaccine, called PittCoVacc, and tested it in mice.
Another team of scientists led by Dr. Josef Penninger of the University of British Columbia invented a medicine called APN01. They tested APN01 in engineered human tissue. This is human cells put together to act like part of the body, but it is not a whole animal or person. They added a protein called "human recombinant soluble angiotensin converting enzyme 2" (hrsACE2) and saw that it stopped the virus from taking over cells. They named their hrsACE2 APN01.
In late April 2020, a team from Oxford University said that they had developed a COVID-19 vaccine. The United States National Institutes of Health tested it in rhesus monkeys, and it worked. Because they had already been working on a vaccine against a different coronavirus, they had a head start working on one for SARS-CoV-2. They would try to test their vaccine on 6000 people by the end of May 2020, and that their vaccine could be ready for people to use in September 2020.
In November 2020, two companies, Pfizer and Moderna both said their vaccines had completed some testing. Both were over 90% effective. Both companies asked the United States Food and Drug Administration for permission to start giving the vaccine to people. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are messenger RNA vaccines they teach the body to recognize the virus. They say mRNA vaccines take less time to develop and make than protein or whole-virus vaccines.
A 90 year old woman from Northern Ireland was the first to receive the Pfizer vaccine on December 8, 2020.
A study from a British company called Synairgen showed that some patients with mild COVID-19 who took interferon beta were less likely to develop severe COVID-19, and they got better faster. The doctors gave the patients interferon beta by letting them breathe in a spray. The study was performed on 101 patients, which is not many. The scientists gave some patients interferon beta and other patients a placebo, a harmless but empty spray. The COVID-19 patients who received the real medicine were 79% less likely to develop a severe case. As of July 2020, scientists are planning to test inhaled interferon beta in a larger study with 400 patients to see if it really does help.
Unlike hydroxychloroquine, interferon beta is a common drug. Giving interferon beta to COVID-19 patients would not mean taking medicine away from people with malaria or lupus.
Some people thought hydroxychloroquine, a medicine given to people with malaria, lupus, and arthritis, might work against COVID-19. One study from China showed that COVID-19 patients who took hydroxychloroquine got better faster, but the study was not peer reviewed. Other studies in France and China seemed to show hydroxychloroquine helped, but the doctors did not compare patients who took hydroxychloroquine to patients who did not, so they could not be sure it was the hydroxychloroquine that was helping them or whether it was something else. United States President Donald Trump said he was taking hydroxychloroquine and told other people to take it too, but Dr. Anthony Fauci, part of the White House official coronavirus task force, said no one could know for sure if hydroxychloroquine worked against SARS-CoV-2. In March, the United States Food and Drug Administration allowed doctors to give hydroxychloroquine and another drug called chloroquine to COVID-19 patients, but in June, they told doctors to stop. By then, more studies had shown that the drugs did not help much and could harm the patients' hearts.
Some scientists also think the drug remdesivir, which was invented as a medicine for Ebola, could work against SARS-CoV-2. Remdesivir works against other viruses and it has already been tested in humans, so the doctors already knew it would not hurt the patients even if it did not make them better. Because scientists already knew remdesivir was safe, they were able to start testing it in humans right away.
Doctors gave remdesivir to some COVID-19 patients on a compassionate basis, meaning they gave them the drug because there was no other treatment available. 68% of the patients got better, 13% died, and 25% had serious side effects. But because the study had no control group, meaning these patients were not compared to other COVID-19 patients who were not taking remdesivir, and because only 53 people were in the experiment, scientists must run more studies before they can be sure remdesivir works.