“We are seeing viral persistence in tissues over many years after initial infection and the immune system is not able to completely clear this out. And so now we have to figure out how either we a) can get the immune system to clear this all out, or can we use other modalities - antivirals, monoclonal antibodies, immune-boosting modification, things like that, that will actually help purge these kind of persistent infected cells that we're observing in tissue.”

Microbiologist Dr. Amy Proal spearheaded the Long Covid Research Initiative (LCRI) at the Washington state–based nonprofit PolyBio Research Foundation. A privately funded venture hoping to raise 100 million dollars and direct it into trials. So far they have raised 15 million. Of course the fund pales in comparison to the 1 billion in the hands of the RECOVER Long Covid initiative at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).