[janet gunter]

After a couple of years hanging back, to protect my own health, I've decided I need to get more involved in campaigning for prevention, recognition and research on Long Covid with the all-volunteer organisation Long Covid SOS.

Even though we don't have any concrete signs it will happen, I still believe the new Labour government can do better. Which is why I wrote this op-ed recently for the BMJ about better collection of data on Covid prevalence.

Currently, the government shares infection data collected almost exclusively at hospitals, and this does not tell us much about covid's spread in the community. Unlike many countries, England doesn't even collect wastewater data.

The previous government placed all responsibility for preventing covid on the individual but refused to give us the tools to limit our own personal risk. We need this government to bring back a commitment to public health, starting with better data collection on covid prevalence in the community so that we can save lives, prevent disability, and maintain economic productivity. The moment demands courage and care.

I'm also working on analysing where funding for Long Covid has gone in the UK in the past couple of years. Open data from 360 Giving for about £20m of this funding suggests it peaked in 2021, and has been plummeting ever since. Also, there are real gaps in funding for awareness and prevention work. Nothing against wellness, nature, and breathwork, but we need to stop the spread of the virus and biomedical research into therapeutics.

Update: Further analysis of the National Institutes for Health Research funding, of £48m since 2020, reveals that it too is dropping off. And the government keeps citing this funding over and over again when asked what it is doing right now to research Long Covid.

We're hoping that some analysis of this can spark a dialogue about how philanthropy and government can work better together to respond to the mass-disabling event.

If you are interested in helping to gather interested people and institutions on this topic, please get in touch.