Although people who recover from COVID-19 usually gain some immune defenses against reinfection, they get additional protection from vaccines, especially against severe disease, according to two studies published on March 31 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Additionally, two gold-standard trials published in The New England Journal of Medicine on March 30 help settle questions about two controversial therapies touted by many early in the pandemic with decidedly mixed results – failure for the antiparasite drug ivermectin and success for antibody-rich blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors.

One in four children with COVID-19 symptoms develop “long COVID,” according to data pooled from 21 earlier studies conducted in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. Also, according to a study reported on March 14 in JAMA Pediatrics, women who wish to pass protective antibodies induced by COVID-19 vaccines to their babies via breast milk should opt for the mRNA shots from Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech.

In a roundup of scientific studies on the novel coronavirus, a small study suggests no traces of mRNA vaccines end up in mothers’ breast milk and a gene called IFI27 that becomes activated early in Covid-19 might help identify people most likely to have contracted the virus after coming in contact with an infected person.