The Senate held its first-ever hearing on long COVID, amid a winter surge in infections. Patients and health experts appealed for more funding and research into the condition, as well as proper insurance coverage, while detailing its debilitating effects, which can include extreme fatigue, chronic pain and what is often described as “brain fog.” This is long COVID researcher Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly.

Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly: “Long COVID affects at least 20 million Americans. It affects people across the lifespan. We have kids with long COVID; we have people 100 years old with long COVID. It affects people across the lifespan and across demographic groups. The burden of long COVID, the burden of disease and disability from long COVID, when you measure it, is on par with the burden of cancer and heart disease.”