Long Covid advocates send “unhappy holiday” cards to their representatives

This month, the organizers of Long Covid Moonshot put together an “Unhappy Holidays” card, letter, and calling campaign directed at legislators. Some from the international community joined in too, writing cards to their respective governments.

The creative effort featured colorful, funny, and heartbreaking letters from people with Long Covid and their allies to advocate for billions of dollars in annual funding for the disease. Cards were sent across the country to various congresspeople, senators, public health officials, and the White House.

While templates were provided by Long Covid Moonshot, some got even more creative, illustrating their cards with “ghost of Long Covid Christmas” and the never-ending gifts of Long Covid: stacks of medical bills, salt for POTS, bottles of pills and supplements, and the always delicious “symptom soup” for Christmas Eve dinner.

Leah Stagnone, the co-founder of the #MEAction New Hampshire chapter carved a linocut woodblock reading “FUND LONG COVID” with a mistletoe leaf at the bottom. She pressed the linocut block into ink and stamped them onto her cards, sending them to senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, and representatives Ann Kuster and Chris Pappas. She also sent a card to the new NIH director, Monica Bergatolli, whom she welcomed into the new position and asked to fight for pwLC and ME.

“This was my first attempt at block printing,” Stagnone wrote to The Sick Times. ‘I’d signed up for a local holiday card-making class and it seemed like a great opportunity to make cards for this action.”

She called for Long Covid funding as well as increased ME funding from the NIH, which has historically had some of the lowest funding comparable to disease burden. “If used appropriately,” she wrote, “Ongoing Long Covid research funding will ultimately help all of us living with infection-associated chronic illnesses.”

The card-writing effort piggybacks on Long Covid Moonshot’s first campaign, a telethon last month that made hundreds of calls to legislators across the country to demand more funding and support for Long Covid.

All articles by The Sick Times are available for other outlets to republish free of charge. We request that you credit us and link back to our website.