When Lisa McCorkell got COVID-19 in March 2020, her symptoms were mild. Her physicians told her to isolate from others and that she would recover in a few weeks. But the weeks stretched into months and McCorkell, who was working on a master\u2019s degree in public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, started having debilitating and bewildering symptoms: fatigue, dizziness and shortness of breath. Previously an avid runner, McCorkell found her heart racing from simple efforts.<\/p>\n
She struggled to find an explanation, and soon realized that her physicians didn\u2019t know any more about her condition than she did. To complicate matters, the limited availability of high-quality testing for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in the early days of the pandemic left many of her doctors wondering whether her symptoms were really due to COVID-19 at all. \u201cI didn\u2019t have health-care providers that took me seriously,\u201d McCorkell says. \u201cThat largely pushed me out of the health-care system.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCorkell turned instead to those who were experiencing the same puzzling symptoms and frustrations, joining a support group for people with what would eventually be called long COVID<\/a>. As they compared notes, McCorkell and a handful of others \u2014 many of whom had research experience<\/a> \u2014 realized that the information they were sharing might be helpful not only for those with long COVID, but also for those looking to study the condition. So, they founded a non-profit organization, called the Patient-Led Research Collaborative (PLRC), to design, provide advice on and even fund basic and clinical research into long COVID and other chronic illnesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Lisa McCorkell got COVID-19 in March 2020, her symptoms were mild. Her physicians told her to isolate from others and that she would recover in a few weeks. But the weeks stretched into months and McCorkell, who was working on a master\u2019s degree in public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, started having debilitating and bewildering symptoms: fatigue, dizziness and shortness of breath. Previously an avid runner, McCorkell found her heart racing from simple efforts.<\/p>\n She struggled to find an explanation, and soon realized that her physicians didn\u2019t know any more about her condition than she did. To complicate matters, the limited availability of high-quality testing for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in the early days of the pandemic left many of her doctors wondering whether her symptoms were really due to COVID-19 at all. \u201cI didn\u2019t have health-care providers that took me seriously,\u201d McCorkell says. \u201cThat largely pushed me out of the health-care system.\u201d<\/p>\n McCorkell turned instead to those who were experiencing the same puzzling symptoms and frustrations, joining a support group for people with what would eventually be called long COVID<\/a>. As they compared notes, McCorkell and a handful of others \u2014 many of whom had research experience<\/a> \u2014 realized that the information they were sharing might be helpful not only for those with long COVID, but also for those looking to study the condition. So, they founded a non-profit organization, called the Patient-Led Research Collaborative (PLRC), to design, provide advice on and even fund basic and clinical research into long COVID and other chronic illnesses.<\/p>\n