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Long-Haulers and Covid-19’s Lasting Impact on People of Color
Tens of thousands of people are considered “long-haulers,” people who have been sick with Covid-19 for long periods of time. As Ed Yong writes in The Atlantic, a few formal studies have suggested that over 80% of people with Covid-19 can have symptoms after two months. “These findings, though limited, are galling,” he writes. “They suggest that in the United States alone, which has more than 5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, there are probably hundreds of thousands of long-haulers.”
This threat of long-term illness exacerbates the impact of Covid-19 on people of color, which is already disproportionately severe. Robert Roy Britt writes in GEN that the structural racism that has permeated every level of American society will make recovery for Black Americans a years-long process. Addressing those inequalities, says Michelle Williams, dean of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, will require “radical, large-scale investment” in public health, housing, and environmental justice.
