A nationwide study hopes to find cause and cure of long COVID-19

Salt Lake City, Utah — A new nationwide initiative hopes to find the cause and cure for long COVID-19.

The National Institutes of Health awarded nearly $470 million to build a national study group called the Researching COVID-19 to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) initiative.

The study will include adults, children, and pregnant women.

“Is there somehow a persistent viral infection in some hidden reservoir that we have not yet been able to discover that in people with long COVID? Is it a misfiring of the immune system that fails to re-set?” said Dr. Francis Collins with the NIH about working theories of what causes COVID.

Researchers will use smartphone apps and wearable devices to give them real-world data in real-time. The group will consist of 40,000 patients and will study patient symptoms, physical findings, and lab results along with reviewing millions of electronic health records.

“The diversity of symptoms and presentation leads us to believe that long COVID may not be just one condition,” Collins said.

Case counts in schools, vaccinations, deaths, and hospitalizations are the metrics that have gotten most of the attention.

“There comes a point in your recovery where you kind of find acceptance that like this might be the new me and I’m just going to have to learn how to live with this,” says Lisa O’Brien who has suffered from COVID symptoms for 18 months.

According to O’Brien, this initiative proves long haulers are now one a priority group adding “it’s just taken so much time for people to listen to us and take us seriously and it’s been, that part has been really frustrating.”

She hopes she’s able to volunteer in the study.