![]() ![]() ![]() “We pick up disparities faster and that can enable us to devise strategies to beat those disparities faster.” “We’re certainly better than we were at the start of Covid,” Kaine told POLITICO, referring to health inequities. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has long Covid himself and continues to experience tingling in his nerves that started when he caught Covid in March 2020, acknowledges that there are still significant barriers to accessing long Covid care, but he is optimistic that things are moving in the right direction as more is learned about the condition. It also published a report outlining federal services available for people who have long Covid. In August, the Biden administration rolled out the National Research Action Plan on Long Covid focused on better understanding how to prevent, diagnose and treat long Covid, and named health equity as a “guiding principle” in that work. While some research shows that mental health impacts how people experience disease, she said many patients are “not being properly referred or identified.” “A lot of patients are being told they are just anxious,” said Alba Azola, co-director of Johns Hopkins Post-Acute Covid-19 Team, referring to the Latino patient community she often works with. In many other instances, patients who do seek treatment are being told that what they are experiencing after their Covid-19 infection is not a problem. “They don’t have time to sit on the phone.” “My patients have to work to pay their bills,” said Ramers, who treats predominantly low-income people of color. He says throughout the pandemic the various innovations that emerged to fight Covid-19 - tests, vaccines, treatments and long Covid clinics - have always been accessible first mainly to people who have the resources to seek them out. “This is the same movie that we’ve seen over and over again,” said Christian Ramers, a doctor who treats long Covid patients at the Family Health Centers of San Diego. The relatively few patients who do get treated are overwhelmingly white and affluent enough to be able to take time off work to go to multiple appointments and spend time online finding care and support groups, doctors say. The constellation of long Covid clinics that have cropped up across the country continue to have months-long waiting lists for new patients. adults who say they’ve had Covid-19 also have long Covid symptoms, it remains prohibitively difficult for patients to get treatment for the condition, doctors say, due to low levels of awareness among doctors and patients, lack of funding for specialized clinics, and the time-consuming process of getting diagnosed and treated for a condition that has dozens of symptoms. And though a recent CDC National Center for Health Statistics survey found nearly one in five U.S. A death can only be attributed to long Covid if a patient is diagnosed with having it. ![]()
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