Long Covid’s funding shortfall

POLITICO's Pulse Check

Ruth Reader and Katherine Ellen Foley discuss the impact on long Covid treatments if the new congress doesn’t approve additional funding for Covid-19 research.

The Biden administration has asked Congress for more than $9 billion in additional funding for Covid-19 that would go toward next-generation vaccine development and long Covid research, a poorly understood, chronic condition affecting millions of Americans. But the incoming divided Congress is unlikely to back federal requests funding research into viable treatments for long Covid and big pharma has yet to launch major studies. An ongoing medical debate about what exactly long Covid is means the industry doesn’t yet have a specific target for therapeutic treatment research.

Without further funds, the fledgling research on potential treatments may come to a standstill.