Long COVID will cost the US an estimated $8 billion over just 3 years due to healthcare burden, managing symptoms and loss to the workforce

The US lacks the capacity to treat long COVID, and HHS defunding is taking the country further away from being able to handle the country’s growing number of long COVID cases.

By: Bruce Y. Lee, City University of New York and Hannah Dimmick, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Public Policy, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: May 21, 2026

Words: 915

Last Updated: 2 months ago

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By Bruce Y. Lee, City University of New York and Hannah Dimmick, CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Public Policy

Headlines on long COVID have become much more rare than during the first few years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But that doesn’t mean the more than 44 million Americans who have at some point reported long COVID symptoms – a number that continues to grow – are no longer suffering, or that …

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