TORONTO — Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it — an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter.

Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that “negative time” isn’t just a theoretical idea, it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny.

The findings, yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, have attracted both global attention and skepticism.

The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time.

“This is tough stuff, even for us to talk about with other physicists. We get misunderstood all the time,” said Aephraim Steinberg, a University of Toronto professor specializing in experimental quantum physics.

While the term “negative time” might sound like a concept lifted from science fiction, Steinberg defends its use, hoping it will spark deeper discussions about the mysteries of quantum physics.

Years ago, the team began exploring interactions between light and matter.

When light particles, or photons, pass through atoms, some are absorbed by the atoms and later re-emitted. This interaction changes the atoms, temporarily putting them in a higher-energy or “excited” state before they return to normal.

In research led by Daniela Angulo, the team set out to measure how long these atoms stayed in their excited state.

“That time turned out to be negative,” Steinberg said, meaning a duration less than zero.

To visualize this concept, imagine cars entering a tunnel: Before the experiment, physicists recognized that while the average entry time for 1,000 cars might be, for example, noon, the first cars could exit a little sooner, say 11:59 a.m. This result was previously dismissed as meaningless.

What Angulo and colleagues demonstrated was akin to measuring carbon monoxide levels in the tunnel after the first few cars emerged and finding that the readings had a minus sign in front of them.

The experiments, conducted in a cluttered basement laboratory bristling with wires and aluminum-wrapped devices, took over two years to optimize. The lasers used had to be carefully calibrated to avoid distorting the results.

Still, Steinberg and Angulo are quick to clarify: No one is claiming time travel is a possibility.

“We don’t want to say anything traveled backward in time,” Steinberg said. “That’s a misinterpretation.”

The explanation lies in quantum mechanics, where particles like photons behave in fuzzy, probabilistic ways rather than following strict rules.

Instead of adhering to a fixed timeline for absorption and re-emission, these interactions occur across a spectrum of possible durations, some of which defy everyday intuition.

Critically, the researchers say, this doesn’t violate Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which dictates that nothing can travel faster than light. These photons carried no information, sidestepping any cosmic speed limits.

The concept of “negative time” has drawn both fascination and skepticism, particularly from prominent voices in the scientific community.

German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, for one, criticized the work in a YouTube video viewed by more than 250,000 people, noting, “The negative time in this experiment has nothing to do with the passage of time — it’s just a way to describe how photons travel through a medium and how their phases shift.”

Angulo and Steinberg pushed back, arguing that their research addresses crucial gaps in understanding why light doesn’t always travel at a constant speed.

Steinberg acknowledged the controversy surrounding their paper’s provocative headline but pointed out that no serious scientist has challenged the experimental results.

“We’ve made our choice about what we think is a fruitful way to describe the results,” he said, adding that while practical applications remain elusive, the findings open new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena. 
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NEW YORK — The U.S. flu season is under way, with cases surging across much of the country, health officials said Friday. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted sharp increases in several measures, including lab tests and emergency room visits. 

“It’s been increasing at a pretty steady pace now for the past several weeks. So yeah, we are certainly in flu season now,” said the CDC’s Alicia Budd. 

Thirteen states reported high or very high levels of flu-like illness last week, about double from the week before. One is Tennessee, where a sickness spike is hitting the Nashville area, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University. 

“Flu has been increasing, but just this last week has exploded,” Schaffner said. He noted that in a local clinic that serves as an indicator of illness trends, as many as a quarter of the patients have flu symptoms. 

Louisiana is another early hot spot. 

“Just this week is really that turning point where people are out because of the flu,” said Dr. Catherine O’Neal, an infectious diseases doctor at the largest private hospital in the state, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge. “You hear parents saying, ‘I can’t come to work because of the flu’ and ‘Where can I get a flu test?’” 

There are a number of bugs that cause fever, cough, sore throat and other flu-like symptoms. One is COVID-19. Another is RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common cause of cold-like symptoms but can be dangerous for infants and the elderly. 

The most recent CDC data show COVID-19 hospitalizations have been declining since summer. COVID-19 activity is moderate nationally, but high in the Midwest, according to CDC wastewater data. 

RSV hospitalizations started rising before flu did and now show signs of possibly leveling off, but they remain a little more common than admissions for flu. Overall, RSV activity is low nationally, but high in the South, the wastewater data show. 

The CDC called the start of flu season based on several indicators, including lab results for patients in hospitals and doctor’s offices, and the percentage of emergency department visits that had a discharge diagnosis of flu. 

No flu strain seems to be dominant, and it’s too early in the season to know how good a match the flu vaccine will be, Budd said. 

Last winter’s flu season was considered “moderate” overall, but it was long — 21 weeks — and the CDC estimated there were 28,000 flu-related deaths. It was unusually dangerous for children, with 205 pediatric deaths reported. That was the highest number ever reported for a conventional flu season. 

The long season was likely a factor, Budd said. Another factor was a lack of flu vaccinations. Among the children who died who were old enough for flu vaccinations — and for whom their vaccination status was known — 80% were not fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. 

Vaccination rates for children are even lower this year. As of Dec. 7, about 41% of adults had received a flu vaccination, similar to the rate at the same point last year. The percentage is the same for kids, but for them that’s a drop from a year ago, when 44% were vaccinated against the flu, according to CDC data. 

Vaccination rates are lower still against COVID-19, with about 21% of adults and 11% of children up to date. 

Flu experts suggest everyone get vaccinated, especially as people prepare to attend holiday gatherings where respiratory viruses can spread widely. 

“All those gatherings that are so heartwarming and fun and joyous are also an opportunity for this virus to spread person to person,” Schaffner said. “It’s not too late to get vaccinated.”
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The Unforgettable Chorus in New York is using music to help people with memory loss reconnect with family, friends and themselves. Since 2011, the choir has been a beacon of hope, offering a space where those living with dementia can sing, participate and be part of a community. Johny Fernandez reports from New York City.
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NEW YORK — U.S. life expectancy jumped last year, and preliminary data suggests there may be another — much smaller — improvement this year.

Death rates fell last year for almost all leading causes, notably COVID-19, heart disease and drug overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Thursday. That translated to adding nearly a year the estimated lifespan of Americans.

Experts note it’s part of a bounce-back from the COVID-19 pandemic. But life expectancy has not yet climbed back to prepandemic levels, and the rebound appears to be losing steam.

“What you’re seeing is continued improvement, but slowing improvement,” said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a University Minnesota researcher who studies death trends. “We are sort of converging back to some kind of normal that is worse than it was before the pandemic.”

Last year, nearly 3.1 million U.S. residents died, about 189,000 fewer than the year before. Death rates declined across all racial and ethnic groups, and in both men and women.

Provisional data for the first 10 months of 2024 suggests the country is on track to see even fewer deaths this year, perhaps about 13,000 fewer. But that difference is likely to narrow as more death certificates come in, said the CDC’s Robert Anderson.

That means that life expectancy for 2024 likely will rise — “but probably not by a lot,” said Anderson, who oversees death tracking at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, given death rates at that time. It’s a fundamental measure of a population’s health.

For decades, U.S. life expectancy rose at least a little bit almost every year, thanks to medical advances and public health measures. It peaked in 2014, at nearly 79 years, and then was relatively flat for several years. Then it plunged during the COVID-19 pandemic, dropping to just under 76 1/2 years in 2021.

It rebounded to 77 1/2 years in 2022 and, according to the new report, to nearly 78 1/2 last year.

Life expectancy for U.S. women continues to be well above that of men — a little over 81 for women, compared with a little under 76 for men.

In the last five years, more than 1.2 million U.S. deaths have been attributed to COVID-19. But most of them occurred in 2020 and 2021, before vaccination- and infection-induced immunity became widespread.

The coronavirus was once the nation’s third leading cause of death. Last year it was the underlying cause in nearly 50,000 deaths, making it the nation’s No. 10 killer.

Data for 2024 is still coming in, but about 30,000 coronavirus deaths have been reported so far. At that rate, suicide may surpass COVID-19 this year, Anderson said.

Heart disease remains the nation’s leading cause of death. Some underappreciated good news is the heart disease death rate dropped by about 3% in 2023. That’s a much smaller drop than the 73% decline in the COVID-19 death rate, but heart disease affects more people so even small changes can be more impactful, Anderson said.

There’s also good news about overdose deaths, which fell to 105,000 in 2023 among U.S. residents, according to a second report released by CDC on Thursday.

The causes of the overdose decline are still being studied but there is reason to be hopeful such deaths will drop more in the future, experts say. Some pointed to survey results this week that showed teens drug use isn’t rising.

“The earlier you start taking a drug, the greater the risk that you could continue using it and the greater the risk that you will become addicted to it — and have untoward consequences,” said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the survey study. “If you can reduce the pipeline (of new drug users) … you can prevent overdoses.”
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GENEVA — International human and animal health experts warn the H5N1 avian influenza is evolving quickly and posing a global health threat as the virus is increasingly crossing species barriers and infecting a wide range of domestic and wild mammals.

“These developments pose significant challenges to animal, human and environmental health,” Dr. Gregorio Torres, veterinarian and head of the science department at the World Organization for Animal Health, told journalists in Geneva Tuesday.

He noted that avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, has been reported in 108 countries and territories over five continents in the last three years.

“And as of December 2024, the infection has been detected in over 70 species of domestic and wild mammals. This includes the ongoing detection of H5N1 in dairy cattle in the United States,” Torres said.

“So far, the close monitoring of the virus has not found markers that could suggest effective mammalian adaptation, but we know this can change at any time,” he said.

Most human cases in US

The World Health Organization this week reported 76 people were infected with the H5 avian influenza viruses in 2024, most of them among farm workers. Sixty-one of these cases occurred in the United States, which has reported outbreaks in wildlife, poultry and, more recently, dairy cattle.

“This is the first time we have seen the infections from dairy cattle to humans, and so many within the U.S.” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic threat management at WHO.

“In the U.S., all but two have direct links with infected animals, whether this was working on farms, whether this was part of culling exercises,” she said. “We have not seen any detection of human-to-human transmission among these cases.”

While much attention on the bird flu situation has focused on the United States this year, Van Kerkhove noted that Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China and Vietnam also reported outbreaks.

Based on available information, she said that the H5N1 viruses have remained avian viruses and have not adapted to spread among people, stressing that follow-up epidemiologic, virologic and serologic investigations “so far have not reported or identified human-to-human transmission.”

“However, this can change quickly as the virus is evolving, which is why we are actively assessing the situation and why surveillance is so critical,” she said.

300 million birds dead

Although the WHO assesses the current risk of infection for the public as low, it considers the public health risk for farm workers and others exposed to infected animals to be low-to-moderate. The WHO advises exposed groups to use personal protective equipment such as coveralls, respirator masks, eye protection, gloves and boots to minimize the risk.

Since October 2021, H5N1 has caused the deaths of more than 300 million birds worldwide, affecting the livelihood of millions of people.

“In addition to the direct impact on livelihoods, the economic burden on farmers can lead to reduced investments in biosecurity measures,” said Madhur Dhingra, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s senior infectious diseases animal health officer.

“This increases the risk and leads to a dangerous cycle of risk, vulnerability, and loss. … In regions heavily reliant on poultry as a primary protein source, HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza] poses a serious threat to food and nutrition security,” she said.

“The impacts of HPAI have spilled over into wildlife, with more than 500 bird species and over 70 mammalian species affected, including endangered animals like the California condor and polar bears,” she said. “The biodiversity impacts, particularly among seabirds and marine mammals, and disruption of fragile ecosystems, such as the Antarctic region, are concerning.”

Health experts agree that increased surveillance and close monitoring of the evolution of the H5N1 virus are essential to prevent the disease from spreading widely around the world.

“We are in an interpandemic period right now where we have a number of different zoonotic viruses, with avian influenza, H5N1 one of several,” Van Kerkhove said.

“While we are operating in a state of readiness, I think the world is not ready for another infectious disease, massive outbreak or pandemic because we have lived through COVID and it was incredibly traumatic, and it is still ongoing.

“We are recommending to our member states and national authorities to increase surveillance and vigilance in human populations, especially those who are occupationally exposed, for the possibility for infection, and, of course, doing thorough investigations around each and every human case,” she said.

In the meantime, she advised people to minimize their risk of becoming sick from bird flu by carefully watching what they eat and drink.

“Cows infected with the H5N1 virus have been reported to have high viral loads in their milk,” she said, so, it is advisable that people “consume pasteurized milk.”

“If pasteurized milk is not available, heating milk until it boils also makes it safe for consumption. Similarly, we recommend thoroughly cooking meat and eggs when in areas affected by avian flu outbreaks,” she said.
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HARARE, ZIMBABWE — A Zimbabwean national park is hosting relocated wildlife from a game park just outside the country’s capital after an autopsy report on Saturday confirmed that four rhinos and several other animals died after drinking contaminated lake water.

Tinashe Farawo, the spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, confirmed to VOA the death of four rhinos after drinking bacteria-polluted water at Lake Chivero Recreational Park, about 20 kilometers west of the capital, Harare.

“We are not only losing the rhinos, but [we] also lost some zebras, wildebeest and some birds,” Farawo said.

“We have tried to treat some of the rhinos, but unfortunately it seems like we are not managing at the moment. But we have made some temporary collective measures to make sure we do the best we can with this challenge,” he said, referring to the temporary transfer of wildlife away from the lake.

“We need to continue to make sure that at least we deal with the issue of pollution around Lake Chivero,” Farawo said.

Amkela Sidange, spokesperson for the Environmental Management Agency of Zimbabwe, said that, nationwide, about 415 megaliters of untreated sewage are being discharged into the environment daily.

The “city of Harare on its own … contributes about 219 megaliters of raw and partly treated sewer that is discharged into the environment on a daily basis, and that goes to show how huge the crisis is,” she said.

“We need the whole of government and societal approach,” Sidange said, adding that temporary solutions aren’t getting the job done.

Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume said he is counting on the central government to provide money to help the city provide proper sewer services, especially for those who live in “informal settlements.”

“We have over 150,000 informal settlements, and these informal settlements do not have sewer reticulation systems,” he said. “Therefore, their discharge is going straight into our water bodies.”

While the bickering continues among high-ranking officials about who is polluting Harare water with cyanobacteria, Farai Maguwu, director of the Center for Natural Resource Governance, is worried about the residents of Zimbabwe’s capital.

“There is a need to carry out scientific investigations about the water that is pumped into people’s homes by Harare city council and see if that water is still safe for drinking and inform the citizens of Harare accordingly,” Maguwu said.

On Tuesday, Mafume declared that Harare’s water was still meeting the World Health Organization’s standards and was safe for drinking.

The city council provides bottled water during its meetings and, for years now, many residents of Harare drink bottled water and water from boreholes.
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NEW YORK — An Alabama woman is recovering well after a pig kidney transplant last month that freed her from eight years of dialysis, the latest effort to save human lives with animal organs. 

Towana Looney is the fifth American given a gene-edited pig organ — and notably, she isn’t as sick as prior recipients who died within two months of receiving a pig kidney or heart. 

“It’s like a new beginning,” Looney, 53, told The Associated Press. Right away, “the energy I had was amazing. To have a working kidney — and to feel it — is unbelievable.” 

Looney’s surgery marks an important step as scientists get ready for formal studies of xenotransplantation expected to begin next year, said Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health, who led the highly experimental procedure. 

Looney is recuperating well after her transplant, which was announced Tuesday. She was discharged from the hospital 11 days after surgery to continue recovery in a nearby apartment although temporarily readmitted this week while her medications are adjusted. Doctors expect her to return home to Alabama in three months. If the pig kidney were to fail, she could begin dialysis again. 

“To see hope restored to her and her family is extraordinary,” said Dr. Jayme Locke, Looney’s original surgeon who secured Food and Drug Administration permission for the Nov. 25 transplant. 

More than 100,000 people are on the U.S. transplant list, most who need a kidney. Thousands die waiting and many more who need a transplant never qualify. Now, searching for an alternate supply, scientists are genetically altering pigs so their organs are more humanlike. 

Looney donated a kidney to her mother in 1999. Later a complication during pregnancy caused high blood pressure that damaged her remaining kidney, which eventually failed. It’s incredibly rare for living donors to develop kidney failure although those who do are given extra priority on the transplant list. 

But Looney couldn’t get a match — she had developed antibodies abnormally primed to attack another human kidney. Tests showed she’d reject every kidney donors have offered. 

Then Looney heard about pig kidney research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and told Locke, at the time a UAB transplant surgeon, she’d like to try one. In April 2023, Locke filed an FDA application seeking an emergency experiment, under rules for people like Looney who are out of options. 

The FDA didn’t agree right away. Instead, the world’s first gene-edited pig kidney transplants went to two sicker patients last spring, at Massachusetts General Hospital and NYU. Both also had serious heart disease. The Boston patient recovered enough to spend about a month at home before dying of sudden cardiac arrest deemed unrelated to the pig kidney. NYU’s patient had heart complications that damaged her pig kidney, forcing its removal, and she later died. 

Those disappointing outcomes didn’t dissuade Looney, who was starting to feel worse on dialysis but, Locke said, hadn’t developed heart disease or other complications. The FDA eventually allowed her transplant at NYU, where Locke collaborated with Montgomery. 

Even if her new organ fails, doctors can learn from it, Looney told the AP: “You don’t know if it’s going to work or not until you try.” 

Blacksburg, Virginia-based Revivicor provided Looney’s new kidney from a pig with 10 gene alterations. Moments after Montgomery sewed it into place, the kidney turned a healthy pink and began producing urine. 

Looney was initially discharged on Dec. 6, wearing monitors to track her blood pressure, heart rate and other bodily functions and returning to the hospital for daily checkups before her medication readmission. Doctors scrutinize her bloodwork and other tests, comparing them to prior research in animals and a few humans in hopes of spotting an early warning if problems crop up. 

“A lot of what we’re seeing, we’re seeing for the first time,” Montgomery said. 

During a visit last week with Locke, who now works for the federal government, Looney hugged her longtime doctor, saying, “Thank you for not giving up on me.” 

“Never,” Locke responded.
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The United Nations says the HIV/AIDS epidemic could be ended by 2030. But patients need to follow their treatment plans to keep the virus in check. Games could help, as Zaheer Cassim reports from Johannesburg.
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Islamabad — Authorities in Pakistan reported Monday that gunmen targeted vaccination teams in northwestern districts during a nationwide campaign against the paralytic poliovirus, resulting in the deaths of at least one health worker and two police officers.

The violence in the militancy-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan, also injured several polio workers and police force members escorting them. There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks.

Pakistan has reported a significant surge in poliovirus infections in 2024, confirming 63 cases so far, compared to only six cases in 2023.

On Monday, the country launched a weeklong house-to-house vaccination campaign, culminating the year’s anti-polio efforts. Officials said the campaign aims to inoculate more than 44 million children under five to protect them against polio.

Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s adviser for the polio eradication program, emphasized parental cooperation to help achieve a polio-free Pakistan.

“We strongly encourage all parents to welcome our dedicated polio workers when they visit your residence and ensure that your children under the age of five receive the necessary two doses of the polio vaccine,” she said.

The World Health Organization lists Pakistan and Afghanistan as the only two countries where the potentially fatal poliovirus continues to cripple children.

WHO officials have cited multiple factors for the resurgence of polio cases in Pakistan. They noted that false propaganda that anti-polio campaigns are a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children has led to vaccine boycotts in some Pakistani districts.

Additionally, insurgents in violence-hit regions occasionally stage deadly attacks on polio teams, suspecting them of spying for the Pakistani security forces, routinely disrupting vaccination drives.

“There are concerning numbers of missed children during the recent campaigns (ranging from 5,000 to 700,000) due to insecurity, boycotts, and program quality issues,” the WHO reported in a statement in August after an emergency committee meeting under the International Health Regulations.

Pakistani authorities have reported the killings of more than 200 polio workers and police personnel escorting them since the country launched vaccination campaigns in the 1990s to control infections.

WHO and officials in Afghanistan have reported at least 23 polio cases in 2024, up from six last year.

In September, the de facto Taliban government abruptly banned the house-to-house vaccination campaign in parts of the war-torn country, permitting only site-to-site and mosque-to-mosque vaccinations of Afghan children.

The WHO committee meeting lamented in its December 3 statement that the Taliban’s ban dealt a setback to the “very encouraging progress” made in Afghanistan during the first half of 2024.

“The committee was concerned about this recent development since site-to-site campaigns are not able to reach all the children in Afghanistan, especially those of younger age and girls,” said the statement. It warned that the restriction poses a substantial risk of a further resurgence of paralytic poliovirus in Afghanistan and beyond.
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VIENNA — Three years ago, Andrea Vanek was studying to be an arts and crafts teacher when spells of dizziness and heart palpitations suddenly started to make it impossible for her to even take short walks.

After seeing a succession of doctors she was diagnosed with long COVID and even now spends most of her days in the small living room of her third-floor Vienna apartment, sitting on the windowsill to observe the world outside.

“I can’t plan anything because I just don’t know how long this illness will last,” the 33-year-old Austrian told AFP.

The first cases of COVID-19 were detected in China in December 2019, sparking a global pandemic and more than seven million reported deaths to date, according to the World Health Organization.

But millions more have been affected by long COVID, in which some people struggle to recover from the acute phase of COVID-19, suffering symptoms including tiredness, brain fog and shortness of breath.

Vanek tries to be careful not to exert herself to avoid another “crash”, which for her is marked by debilitating muscle weakness and can last for months, making it hard to even open a bottle of water.

“We know that long COVID is a big problem,” said Anita Jain, from the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme.

About six percent of people infected by coronavirus develop long COVID, according to the global health body, which has recorded some 777 million COVID cases to date.

Whereas the rates of long COVID after an initial infection are declining, reinfection increases the risk, Jain added.

‘Everything hurts’

Chantal Britt, who lives in Bern, Switzerland, contracted COVID in March 2020. Long COVID, she said, has turned her “life upside down” and forced her to “reinvent” herself. 

“I was really an early bird…. Now I take two hours to get up in the morning at least because everything hurts,” the 56-year-old former marathon runner explained.

“I’m not even hoping anymore that I’m well in the morning but I’m still kind of surprised how old and how broken I feel.”

About 15 percent of those who have long COVID have persistent symptoms for more than one year, according to the WHO, while women tend to have a higher risk than men of developing the condition.

Britt, who says she used to be a “workaholic”, now works part-time as a university researcher on long COVID and other topics. 

She lost her job in communications in 2022 after she asked to reduce her work hours.

She misses doing sports, which used to be like “therapy” for her, and now has to plan her daily activities more, such as thinking of places where she can sit down and rest when she goes shopping.

A lack of understanding by those around her also make it more difficult.

“It’s an invisible disease…. which connects to all the stigma surrounding it,” she said.

“Even the people who are really severely affected, who are at home, in a dark room, who can’t be touched anymore, any noise will drive them into a crash, they don’t look sick,” she said.

Fall ‘through the cracks’

The WHO’s Jain said it can be difficult for healthcare providers to give a diagnosis and wider recognition of the condition is crucial.

More than 200 symptoms have been listed alongside common ones such as fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive dysfunction.

“Now a lot of the focus is on helping patients, helping clinicians with the tools to accurately diagnose long COVID, detect it early,” she said.

Patients like Vanek also struggle financially. She has filed two court cases to get more support but both are yet to be heard.

She said the less than $840 she gets in support cannot cover her expenses, which include high medical bills for the host of pills she needs to keep her symptoms in check.

“It’s very difficult for students who get long COVID. We fall right through the cracks” of the social system, unable to start working, she said.

Britt also wants more targeted research into post-infectious conditions like long COVID.

“We have to understand them better because there will be another pandemic and we will be as clueless as ever,” she said.
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