High blood pressure or hypertension is often called the silent killer, because the symptoms that it does cause beyond headache (such as nervousness, sleep disturbance, and poor exercise tolerance) have not typically been linked to elevated blood pressure. Over the years when blood pressure remains uncontrolled it damages the heart, brain, kidneys, and blood vessels and impairs their function. Millions of people take blood pressure medication every day for the purpose of lowering their blood pressure to normal levels. For many, those medicines work well, however for others, the numbers on the blood pressure monitor remain stubbornly high despite taking several different antihypertensive drugs. This frustrating situation leaves patients at increased risk for preventable health problems (such as stroke, and heart failure) and both them and their doctors searching for better answers.

For decades, respiratory viruses seemed to follow a familiar seasonal script. As autumn cooled into winter, influenza returned, respiratory syncytial virus, better known as RSV, filled pediatric wards, and a collection of other viruses circulated alongside them. Hospitals could never predict the season perfectly, but experience provided a rough map of what was coming. Then COVID-19 arrived, and the map stopped matching the territory.