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For Those Suffering From Long COVID, the Pandemic Isn’t Over

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A nurse in full scrubs, gloves, clear face shield, N-95-grade mask, and hair pulled back and tucked in a hair net, prepares a COVID-19 test inside a medical lab. A lamp is lit in the background and the desk it's on is covered in neatly stacked paperwork.
Luciana Suelzle prepares a COVID-19 test at Lifelong Medical Care William Jenkins Health Center in Richmond on Jan. 19, 2022. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

The federal COVID emergency will officially end on Thursday. But for those living with long COVID, the end of the pandemic couldn’t feel farther from reality. 

Dubbed by some as a “mass disabling event,” long COVID has left millions of Americans unable to work and stuck navigating the system of disability benefits in order to survive. Doctors and researchers have yet to pin down the exact cause of long COVID. Meanwhile, patients feel that not enough has been done to help find an effective treatment.

Episode transcript

Guest: Keith Mizuguchi, producer for KQED’s The California Report 


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