Emily Taylor, President and Chief Executive Officer of Solve M.E., discusses the significant socioeconomic burden of Long COVID, highlighting advances in research that can improve understanding of Long COVID and enable targeted interventions and better treatment protocols
Long COVID is an increasingly serious burden to the US economy. Even by conservative calculations, existing cases of Long COVID could cost up to $6.6 billion (Bartsch et al., 2025).
Breakthroughs in Long COVID research shape how we understand, mitigate, and reduce the socioeconomic impact of the disease. Knowing who is more likely to develop Long Covid means interventions can be targeted — potentially reducing the proportion of people impacted.
Improved understanding of the mechanisms is leading to better treatment protocols and reinforcing the legitimacy of disability claims, workplace accommodation, and health-insurance coverage. Fewer people with chronic impairment means lower indirect costs (absenteeism, retraining) and less strain on social security or disability systems.
Here are five promising studies that could help reduce Long COVID’s socioeconomic burden through better diagnosis and treatment.
Macrophage peroxisomes guide alveolar regeneration and limit SARS-CoV-2 tissue sequelae
Dr. Jie Sun’s research team (University of Virginia) recently discovered a key mechanism by which COVID and Long COVID damage lung tissues. The team found that lung tissues in these people have significantly elevated interferon levels, which dysregulate lung macrophage peroxisomes that neutralize oxidants and support mitochondrial health. With dysregulated peroxisomes, the lung macrophages could neither properly resolve inflammation nor adequately repair lung tissues. Using a new mouse model, the team showed that sodium 4-phenylbutyrate (an FDA-approved drug that boosts peroxisome functions) reversed these problems and reduced COVID and Long COVID symptoms. Thus, this work suggests a new, potentially powerful way to reduce a key Long COVID symptom.
Identification of soluble biomarkers that associate with distinct manifestations of long COVID
Searching for blood-based biomarkers for Long COVID, Dr. David Price (Cardiff University) and Dr. Marcus Buggert (Karolinska Institute) found a unique protein signature in people with Long COVID–associated breathlessness, one of the most prominent symptoms in their cohort. The identities of these biomarkers suggested that some people with Long COVID become breathless because inflamed blood vessels and excessive blood clotting damage their lungs. This work is important because it shows how treatments that heal lung tissues by reducing inflammation and blood clots may improve breathing for these people.
Genome-wide association study of Long COVID
Analyzing the genomes of two million people from countries around the world, Dr. Hanna Ollila (University of Helsinki) and Dr. Hugo Zeberg (Karolinska Institute) recently found that people with variants of the gene FOXP4 have significantly greater risk of developing Long COVID. FOXP4 is a transcription factor expressed in most tissues, especially in the lungs. This work is important because it shows certain people are genetically predisposed to develop Long COVID; specifically, due to genetic variants that influence lung physiology.
Patient-reported treatment outcomes in ME/CFS and Long COVID
Dr. Ronald Davis (Stanford) and Dr. Wenzhong Xiao (Harvard) recently surveyed thousands of people to compare the effects of over 150 treatment options for people with ME/CFS and those with Long COVID. They found people with ME/CFS and those with Long COVID shared similar symptoms and comorbidities; and, critically, the treatments affected individuals in one group as they did the other. The researchers categorized participants into four subgroups and found that different treatments worked best for individuals in each subgroup. This work is important because it shows that people with Long COVID can benefit from treatment experiences of people with ME/CFS and that they should consider their Long COVID subtypes when choosing treatments.
Dr. Emily Pfaff (University of North Carolina) and the NIH RECOVER Initiative recently updated their artificial intelligence algorithm for analyzing electronic health records to identify adults with Long COVID. Electronic health records are invaluable for researching diseases. But most people with Long COVID are undiagnosed; thus, records usually don’t outright tell who has the disease and who doesn’t. To get around this problem, the team’s algorithm uses other recorded information to predict disease status. The updated algorithm is highly sensitive and specific, and it estimates that about one in ten adults with COVID-19 develop Long COVID.
Through our Ramsay Research Grant Program, Catalyst Awards, and patient recruitment
infrastructure, Solve M.E. has directly supported the growth of Long COVID research. Past grant recipients include internationally recognized scientists such as Dr. Akiko Iwasaki (Yale), Dr. Carmen Scheibenbogen (Charité University), and Dr. Rob Wüst (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). To learn more about their research, visit SolveME.org.
Future treatment for Long COVID
Research breakthroughs are helping uncover new treatments to address the socioeconomic impacts of Long COVID. The real challenge now is sustaining investment in this research to transform these findings into treatments that will return millions with Long COVID to wellness and the workplace.
Examples include these projects and recent papers (listed by researcher):
- Dr. Jonas Bergquist, Patient-reported treatment outcomes in ME/CFS and Long Covid (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2025)
- Dr. Heather Edgell, Physiological and cognitive function in patients with post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 or ME/CFS before and after inspiratory muscle training (Ramsay Research Grant Project)
- Dr. Akiko Iwasaki, The role of complement in Long Covid pathogenesis (JCI Insight, 2025) Characterization of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome in Long Covid: Self-reported Data From the LISTEN Study (JACC Adv, 2025)
- Mr. Themos Kalafatis, Application of machine learning and text analytics in a cohort of people with ME/CFS, people with Long Covid to capture disease severity, potential associations, and sequential patterns of events (Ramsay Research Grant Project)
- Dr. Amy Proal and Dr. Michael VanElzakker, Targeting the SARS-CoV-2 reservoir in Long Covid (Lancet Infect Dis, 2025), SARS-CoV-2 reservoir in post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (Nat Immunol, 2023)
- Dr. Carmen Scheibenbogen, Efficacy of repeated immunoadsorption in patients with post-COVID ME/CFS and elevated β2-adrenergic receptor autoantibodies: a prospective cohort study (Lancet Reg Health Eur, 2024)
- Dr. Jennifer Stone, ME/CFS and Long Covid: are they the same condition? (Ramsay Research Grant Project)
- Dr. Aaron Ring, Discovery of pathological autoantibodies in ME/CFS and post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (Ramsay Research Grant Project), Distinguishing features of Long Covid identified through immune profiling (Nature, 2023)
- Dr. Rob Wüst, Skeletal muscle pain and post-exertional malaise in patients with long covid: from pathophysiology to treatment (Ramsay Research Grant Project)
- Dr. Dana Yelin, Enhanced external counterpulsation to treat Long Covid fatigue—a randomized controlled trial (Ramsay Research Grant Project)