Janna Friedly was thrilled, hopeful — and relieved — by the email that had landed in her inbox: After years of fighting an uphill battle to treat patients with long COVID, her Seattle clinic, one of the first and longest-running facilities in the US, was finally getting a much-needed financial boost from the US Department of Health and Human Services. The multimillion-dollar grant, which came through in September, was going to help Friedly and her colleagues at the University of Washington's Post-COVID Rehabilitation and Recovery Care at Harborview Medical Center meet some of the crushing demands of long COVID care.

Their circumstances are hardly unique. Clinics across the country are facing daunting challenges — amid dire patient needs, insufficient funding from state and federal health agencies has led to significant hurdles in patient care, especially for vulnerable and underserved communities, according to interviews and surveys with more than a dozen long COVID clinics, doctors, advocates, and patients. At the same time, a lack of training and education on long COVID within the broader medical community is hurting patients.

Read the full story here.