�������ýҕ�l

It started for Melanie Montano with a tightness in her chest, almost like someone was sitting on top of her. It was March 15, and she was sweating but freezing cold. And she had a strange “pins-and-needles” sensation on the back of her legs. “It was as if I woke up in a totally different body,” she recalled. Over the following weeks, Montano, 32, developed a fever, cough, stomach problems, and lost her sense of taste and smell like other sufferers of the novel coronavirus. Unlike most of them, though, her symptoms never went away. (Cha and Bernstein, 6/11)

Survivors of COVID-19 are donating their blood plasma in droves in hopes it helps other patients recover from the coronavirus. And while the jury’s still out, now scientists are testing if the donations might also prevent infection in the first place. Thousands of coronavirus patients in hospitals around the world have been treated with so-called convalescent plasma — including more than 20,000 in the U.S. — with little solid evidence so far that it makes a difference. One recent study from China was unclear while another from New York offered a hint of benefit. (Neergaard, 6/12)

Antibodies from people who recovered from SARS — a deadly respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus that emerged nearly 20 years ago — may be critical to fighting COVID-19, according to a study in the journal Nature. The peer-reviewed paper reveals how an antibody discovered in a person infected by the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus in 2003 acted as a potent blocker against SARS-CoV-2, the closely related coronavirus that causes COVID-19. (Dizikes, 6/11)

Microsoft Corp. and Seattle biotech company Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. on Thursday launched a database designed to provide public health agencies and researchers with population-level information about patients' immune response to COVID-19. The database, dubbed ImmuneCODE, provides researchers with information about T cells—a key part of immune response—and how they respond to the virus, from "initial exposure through clearance," Harlan Robins, Adaptive Biotechnologies' co-founder and chief scientific officer, said in a statement. (Cohen, 6/11)