Trump Administration Pressed to Launch ‘Warp Speed’ Solution for 18 Million Long COVID Sufferers

Clear Facts

• An estimated 18 million Americans currently suffer from Long COVID, costing the economy hundreds of billions annually in productivity losses and medical expenses
• Senator Todd Young pressed Secretary Kennedy at budget hearings to prioritize Long COVID research, with Kennedy committing to biomarker identification efforts
• Medical experts who witnessed the successful HIV/AIDS response are calling for a similar aggressive federal investment to develop Long COVID treatments

Long COVID has emerged as a serious public health crisis affecting as many as 18 million Americans. Senator Todd Young raised this critical issue with Secretary Kennedy during confirmation hearings last year, and followed up this week at budget hearings. Secretary Kennedy reported on the Department’s efforts to identify biomarkers and committed to continuing research — welcome news for millions of suffering Americans.

For most of us, the COVID-19 pandemic is a distant memory. However, too many Americans continue experiencing the pandemic as a daily reality, suffering from what is now known as Long COVID.

In 2026, three years after the Public Health Emergency ended, Long COVID patients report a wide variety of debilitating symptoms. These include significant cognitive dysfunction, extreme fatigue, post-exertional exhaustion, autonomic dysfunction, cardiovascular conditions, blood vessel pathology, air hunger, intravascular micro-coagulation, tinnitus, and other neurological symptoms. Unfortunately, there is no molecular diagnostic test, no detailed understanding of the disease’s pathogenesis, and no definitive therapy.

The current Long COVID crisis mirrors the early days of the AIDS epidemic before NIH and HHS made solving AIDS a research priority. More than thirty years ago, academia, federal laboratories, and industry committed to solving AIDS. These efforts converted HIV/AIDS from a once fatal disease to a highly treatable and preventable infection, where individuals infected with the HIV virus can expect to live a full, natural lifetime.

This occurred because of an aggressive focus on what was possible and a major investment in innovation by the U.S. Government. Similarly, 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 were made during the COVID-19 response, 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.

Sadly, the NIH has failed to effectively invest the necessary resources to solve our understanding of Long COVID pathogenesis or to develop the diagnostic test necessary to move the field forward. In 2025, the Administration undertook a series of actions consistent with a pandemic that had run its course. The Office for Long COVID Research and Practice was shuttered and research funding was cut.

The CDC and 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.”

As much as we might wish this to be true, this is a mischaracterization of the current state of the pandemic, and it is a costly one. Productivity losses and medical costs associated with Long COVID patients continue to cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Research programs that would have made a meaningful dent in these costs were cut just as they were on the cusp of yielding results that would have led to a wave of clinical trials.

Fortunately, some of the cuts in this research have been reversed. Unfortunately, the overall investment in Long COVID remains inadequate. More needs to be done.

Now is the time to prioritize the discovery of novel treatments to ease the suffering of the 18 million patients struggling with Long COVID. Simply put, the NIH should aggressively fund Long COVID research efforts. Secretary Kennedy’s emphasis on battling chronic disease is long overdue and applaudable.

The administration must aggressively address Long COVID, a new and major chronic disease affecting millions of Americans. AIDS once was 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 systems so urgently needed. Now is the time to empower HHS and industry to make this a reality and offer millions of suffering Americans the chance to live unencumbered by the effects of Long COVID.

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