Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease leading to an impaired glucose metabolism and requires life-long administration of insulin. While the cause of the autoimmunity reaction is still unclear, viral infections in young children are proposed to be critical environmental factors leading to type 1 diabetes. An international team of researchers from the Global Platform for the Prevention of Autoimmune Diabetes (GPPAD) now reports an increase in the incidence of islet autoimmunity in young children with a genetic risk for type 1 diabetes who had a SARS-CoV-2 infection. The findings were published in the journal JAMA.