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So today, Artie, Phil, and I are joined by a death panel contributor, Abby Cardis.

Abby is a perinatal epidemiologist, a longtime friend of the panel and audience favorite.

And last time that we had her on like a week or so ago, she teased me really hard about doing too long of an introduction.

So I did a shorter one today.

I love it. All joking aside. Abby, welcome back to the death panel. It's always a good day when you're joining us.

Thank you. And so today we're going to talk about long COVID and the welfare state. As we shifted into

the Bayblade era of the pandemic response over the last year and a half or so,

with many countries, especially and including the United States, deciding to pursue focus

protection and let it rip, hundreds of millions of people have been infected with COVID

exponentially more than ever before. And with studies showing evidence that long COVID affects up to

30% of people who are infected with COVID, and this is importantly a middle of the road figure.

Most data researchers I speak to say that 30% is average and likely an undercount. And the fact

the matter is, no matter what the prevalence is, it's too much. And since no state

leader seems to care about trying to prevent long COVID, the discussion is turned to how to

gatekeep, who counts as having long COVID, how to cure it, and how to avoid the need for any

sort of radical overhaul of the social safety net, health finance, or disability supports. So the bottom

line here is that our systems of care and health finance are absolutely not prepared for this.

And that's what we're going to discuss today in the U.S. context. So the Biden administration has

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