This month marks five years since the pandemic began, and here are 5 things that changed permanently.

Alabama is the only state where 4th-grade math scores are higher now than they were in 2019, before the pandemic. This is the story of how the state pulled it off.

Five years after the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, there has been progress — and backsliding in the way the world responds to infectious disease.

They're pushing for more funding to find effective treatments. Researchers are finally starting to make headway but have a way to go.

The pandemic decimated the box office and the reshaped the moviegoing experience. NPR's movie critic, Bob Mondello, looks back on how his job changed during the early months of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 lockdown "felt like solitary confinement," a San Diego resident tells NPR. Even after many pandemic rules lifted, American society remains deeply fractured.

Respiratory viruses are beginning to decrease from a second winter peak in Atlanta and across Georgia, data indicate. 

It's an unusual winter for respiratory illnesses. The flu is peaking twice: once in early January and again in February. Meanwhile, it's the mildest COVID winter since the pandemic began.

Georgia hospitalizations for the three most common U.S. respiratory diseases have continued to decline, but updates from COVID-19 and influenza data sources suggest that might change in the coming weeks. 

As the new year begins, Atlanta and Georgia respiratory disease spread has accelerated to some of the highest levels seen this winter.

The annual winter respiratory virus season is in full force. The number of people catching the flu is skyrocketing, while COVID-19, RSV and other respiratory viral illnesses are also rising.

While Georgia influenza and COVID-19 rates appear to be lower than last year at this time, flu circulation has reached a level that concerns some local health officials. 

Heading into the fifth U.S. winter of COVID-19, an Emory University lab has found the presence — or absence — of a particular antibody in the nose of patients can predict how severe their illness would be.

Nursing aides feel abandoned as they grapple with mental and physical troubles that stem from their work during the COVID outbreak.

With genetic samples from the infamous Wuhan market, a new study makes the case that raccoon dogs are likely the animal that infected humans. Proponents of the lab leak theory are dubious.