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When it comes to developing high blood pressure, Covid-19 might play an outsized role, a new study says. The report, published Monday in the medical journal Hypertension, found that more than 1 in 5 patients who were hospitalized with Covid-19 – and over 1 in 10 who were not – had been diagnosed with high blood pressure six months later. Compared with people who had influenza, another upper respiratory virus, those hospitalized with Covid-19 were over twice as likely to develop hypertension. (Viswanathan, 8/21)

The risk of developing venous thromboembolisms—potentially serious blood clots in the veins—is elevated among cancer patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and taking anticancer drugs, according to a study yesterday in JAMA Oncology. (Wappes, 8/18)

COVID hospitalizations and death rose last week, along with other indicators and the proportion of newer Omicron variants such as EG.5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its latest data updates. Also, scientists in the United Kingdom have identified the country's first case involving BA.2.86, an Omicron variant under close watch due to its many mutations and the possibility that it may already be circulating in multiple world regions. (Schnirring, 8/18)

COVID-19 hospitalization rates across Tennessee rose 48% between June and July amid signs of a late summer wave sweeping the country. The average COVID-19 hospitalization rate nationwide rose about 17% between June and July, per the latest available Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. (Fitzpatrick, Beheraj and Rau, 8/18)

Analysts point to broad-based “COVID fatigue” ― dimming enthusiasm for another round of vaccinations. Fatigue has taken hold even as COVID hospital admissions nationwide have trended up in August, climbing 14.3 percent to 10,320 for the week ending Aug. 5, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But virus-related hospitalizations remain far below the 42,813 during the same period last summer. (Weisman, 8/18)

The first terrifying wave of Covid-19 caused 60,000 deaths among residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities within five months. As the pandemic wore on, medical guidelines called for promptly administering newly approved antiviral treatments to infected patients at high risk of severe illness, hospitalization or death. Why, then, did fewer than one in five nursing home residents with Covid receive antiviral treatment from May 2021 through December 2022? (Span, 8/19)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: The CDC Works To Overhaul Lab Operations After Covid Test Flop 

In early February 2020, Kirsten St. George and her team at New York state’s public health lab received a test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to diagnose people infected with the new, rapidly spreading coronavirus. But, like many labs around the country, it quickly found the test gave inaccurate results. So test samples had to be sent back to the CDC for processing, wasting time and leaving state officials “sort of blind to what the situation was with the disease,” said St. George, chief of the laboratory of viral diseases at the Wadsworth Center, one of the nation’s largest state public health labs. (Whitehead, 8/21)