Covid-19 is now endemic, meaning the coronavirus is here to stay and health officials must pivot from treating it like a one-time emergency to managing the disease in perpetuity. The same must be true of long covid.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 6 percent of American adults have lingering symptoms from coronavirus infection. But despite the condition’s prevalence, much about long covid remains a mystery. Most distressing is the fact that there is no cure for it.
This needs to change. Key to living with the virus is reckoning with its consequences, which includes having a plan to treat those afflicted with post-covid conditions.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has been leading the push for funding to accelerate long-covid research. His advocacy is personal: He contracted the virus in March 2020, and though his symptoms were mild and quickly subsided, one never went away.
Thus far, more than $1 billion has gone to fund long-covid research through the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. Kaine is spearheading efforts to secure additional resources, including through bipartisan legislation introduced with another senator with long covid, Todd C. Young (R-Ind.).
