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Convalescent plasma has been used widely to treat patients with COVID-19, under the assumption that the immune cells in a recovered person's blood would help the next patient fight off the virus. The Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of convalescent plasma last summer for hospitalized patients during the pandemic, though it said further research would be needed to confirm its effectiveness. A trial run by the National Institutes of Health was stopped early Tuesday, because an independent group of reviewers determined it was not providing benefit to COVID-19 patients treated and released from emergency rooms. (Weintraub, 3/3)

A year into the pandemic, COVID-19 still puzzles researchers, but the public release of a new database may help scientists solve some of the mysteries lingering around this devastating disease. An international team of researchers from institutions including Boston Children's Hospital and the University of Oxford has partnered with Google to release Global. health, a platform that contains information about almost 10 million COVID-19 cases from over 100 countries. (Ou, 3/4)

KHN: Coronavirus Deranges The Immune System In Complex And Deadly Ways 

There’s a reason soldiers go through basic training before heading into combat: Without careful instruction, green recruits armed with powerful weapons could be as dangerous to one another as to the enemy. The immune system works much the same way. Immune cells, which protect the body from infections, need to be “educated” to recognize bad guys — and to hold their fire around civilians. (Szabo, 3/4)

When experts envision the future of the coronavirus, many predict that it will become a seasonal pathogen that won’t be much more than a nuisance for most of us who have been vaccinated or previously exposed to it. But how long that process takes — and how much damage the virus inflicts in the interim — is still anyone’s guess. (Joseph and Branswell, 3/4)