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Nearly one in four adults who contracted COVID-19 developed long COVID symptoms, according to the most recent data from the Census Bureau. ... Anyone infected with COVID-19 can develop long COVID, but the condition is more common in people who had severe COVID-19 symptoms, as well as women, older adults, people with underlying health conditions and people who did not get vaccinated, according to the Washington state Health Department. (Chernikoff and Loehrke, 2/21)

Seven years ago, the National Institutes of Health began a study of patients ... with the condition known as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS. ... Findings from the study, which was published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications, showed notable physiological differences in the immune system, cardio-respiratory function, gut microbiome and brain activity of the ME/CFS patients compared with a group of 21 healthy study participants. (Belluck, 2/21)

A new study based on 4,605 participants in the Michigan COVID-19 Recovery Surveillance Study shows that the prevalence of long COVID symptoms at 30 and 90 days post-infection was 43% to 58% lower among adults who were fully vaccinated before infection. The study appeared yesterday in the Annals of Epidemiology. The 30- and 90-day timeframes were meant to compare two different definitions of long COVID. (Soucheray, 2/20)

Alison Sbrana was in the belly of an opera when her life changed. Down in the pit, surrounded by fellow orchestra members, she’d been straining to play her flute for half the show. As performers overhead enveloped the audience in arias, Sbrana felt like the Hulk was pulling on the tendons in the right side of her neck. “I begged anybody for meds at intermission,” she said. (Cueto, 2/21)

Today in  JAMA, researchers show that US renters who were served eviction notices in the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic had a high proportion of excess deaths. Investigators from Princeton University and Rutgers University-Newark analyzed linked eviction and death records from January 2020 to August 2021, comparing them with projected death rates estimated from comparable records in 2010 to 2016. (Van Beusekom, 2/20)

A new study in JAMA Health Forum of national data on US registered nurses (RNs) finds that the rebound in the total size of the RN workforce during 2022 and 2023 indicates that RN labor shortages during the first 2 years of the pandemic were likely transitory. In 2021, the US RN workforce decreased by more than 100,000 employees, the largest single-year drop in 40 years.But by 2022, increases in RN hiring had picked up across the country. (Soucheray, 2/20)

Four major nonprofits that rose to prominence during the coronavirus pandemic by capitalizing on the spread of medical misinformation collectively gained more than $118 million between 2020 and 2022, enabling the organizations to deepen their influence in statehouses, courtrooms and communities across the country, a Washington Post analysis of tax records shows. Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., received $23.5 million in contributions, grants and other revenue in 2022 alone — eight times what it collected the year before the pandemic began — allowing it to expand its state-based lobbying operations to cover half the country. Another influential anti-vaccine group, Informed Consent Action Network, nearly quadrupled its revenue during that time to about $13.4 million in 2022, giving it the resources to finance lawsuits seeking to roll back vaccine requirements as Americans’ faith in vaccines drops. (Weber, 2/21)