Long COVID is a serious, growing public health crisis. Although estimates vary, as many as 18 million Americans could be affected by this. This is why it continues to attract the attention of Senator Todd Young, who asked Secretary Kennedy during his confirmation hearing last year to prioritize Long Covid research. This week, the Senator had the opportunity to contact the Secretary during this year’s budget hearing, who reported on the Department’s efforts to identify biomarkers and committed to continuing these efforts.
This is welcome news. For most of us, the COVID-19 pandemic is a distant but searing memory. However, too many Americans are still experiencing the pandemic as a daily reality and are suffering from what is now known as Long COVID. In 2026, three years after the end of the public health emergency, Long COVID patients report a wide variety of symptoms, including significant cognitive impairment, extreme fatigue, post-exercise exhaustion, autonomic dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, vascular pathology, air hunger, intravascular microcoagulation, tinnitus, and other neurological symptoms. Unfortunately, there is no molecular diagnostic test, no detailed elucidation of the pathogenesis of the disease and no definitive therapy.
I dedicated my medical career—in the U.S. Army, at the University of Maryland, and in public service—to combating deadly and debilitating diseases. These days, much of my medical practice is focused on helping patients suffering from Long COVID. The current Long Covid crisis reminds me of my early days as a new physician dealing with AIDS, before the NIH and HHS made solving AIDS a research priority.
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More than thirty years ago, I witnessed academia, federal laboratories, and industry commit to solving AIDS. These efforts transformed HIV/AIDS from a once fatal disease into a highly treatable and preventable infection, allowing individuals infected with the HIV virus to live full, natural lives. This happened because of an aggressive focus on what was possible and a large investment in innovation by the US government. Likewise, in 2020, with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump had the insight to fund Operation Warp Speed and engage industry in the rapid development of a COVID vaccine.
Many mistakes have been made in the response to Covid-19, but developing vaccines at record speed to protect the vulnerable was not one of them. Given the enormity of the Long COVID problem, President Trump should now direct his team to accelerate innovative research to discover and develop an effective treatment for Long COVID.
Unfortunately, the NIH has failed to effectively invest the necessary resources to resolve our understanding of long COVID pathogenesis or to develop a diagnostic test needed to advance the field.
In 2025, the government took a series of actions consistent with a pandemic that had run its course. The Office for Long COVID Research and Practice was closed and research funding was reduced. The CDC and the NIH both stated that they would “no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”
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As much as we would like this to be true, this is a mischaracterization of the current state of the pandemic, and it is costly. Productivity losses and medical costs associated with Long COVID patients continue to cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Unfortunately, research programs that would have made a meaningful dent in these costs were cut just as they were about to deliver results that would have led to a wave of clinical trials. Fortunately, a number of cuts to this research have been reversed. Unfortunately, the total investments in Long COVID are insufficient. More needs to be done.
Now is the time to prioritize the discovery of new treatments to alleviate the suffering of the 18 million patients struggling with Long COVID. Simply put, the NIH should aggressively fund Long COVID research efforts.
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I applaud Secretary Kennedy’s emphasis on the fight against chronic diseases. This was a long time ago. And so we call on Secretary Kennedy and the administration to aggressively address Long COVID, a new and serious chronic disease.
AIDS was once a mysterious, predominantly fatal disease of otherwise healthy individuals. Now it is a treatable and preventable infection. The same could be true for Long COVID, if we aggressively invest in the research and clinical system that is so urgently needed. Now is the time to empower HHS and industry to make this a reality and give millions of suffering Americans the opportunity to live unhindered by the effects of Long COVID.
