NIH Documents Show $1.6 Billion Long COVID Initiative So Far Falls Short of Goals

Congress more than three years ago allocated $1.6 billion to the NIH to define, understand, and treat long COVID—and there’s largely nothing to show for it.

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It’s been more than three years since Congress directed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate the long-term effects of COVID-19—and there are still no answers for the millions of Americans suffering from long COVID.

The NIH launched the $1.15 billion RECOVER initiative in early 2021 to understand, prevent, and develop potential treatments for long COVID. The NIH set deadlines for certain goals to be met when it allocated funding.