Still Here, March 9: Links and transcript

Summary

While the federal government has historically supported workers with disabilities, many workers with Long COVID worry accommodations such as working remotely are now threatened under the Trump administration. Plus, see The Sick Times live virtually or in New York City on March 18.

In this episode of Still Here: Co-host Betsy Ladyzhets shares the experiences of federal government workers living with Long COVID. And more information about The Sick Times’ first in-person (and virtual) event.

Also in this episode: A Radiology study looking at the impact of Long COVID on children’s lungs, a clinical trial testing a drug used for Alzheimer’s, and the latest COVID-19 trends. 

Find our Long COVID news and commentary podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, or listen below and jump to the start of the podcast transcript.

Jump to a specific part of the transcript:

• Intro
• COVID-19 trends
• Federal workers with Long COVID
• See The Sick Times in-person (or virtually)
• Research
• Outro

Still Here overlaps with The Sick Times’ newsletter, which publishes weekly.

Mentioned in this episode (in order of appearance):

• The Sick Times: National COVID-19 trends, March 4
• CDC wastewater dashboard
• Biobot wastewater risk reports
• WastewaterSCAN dashboard
• The Sick Times: Federal workers with Long COVID face firings, loss of accommodations, and more challenges under Trump
• COVID is a Labor Issue zine
• The Sick Times: Event announcement: Commemorating Long COVID Awareness Day
• The Sick Times: Research updates, March 4
• The Sick Times: Why are there almost no clinical trials for kids with Long COVID?

Additional audio in this episode: 

• Rude Mechanical Orchestra: Which Side Are You On? (orig. Florence Reece) 
• Pixabay: Thunder and the beginning of rainfall

Transcript

Intro (0:00) 

[Instrumental snippet of theme song, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra’s rendition of “Which Side Are You On?” begins playing.]

James Salanga: Welcome to Still Here, a Long COVID news and commentary podcast from The Sick Times.

Miles Griffis: Hi. I’m Miles Griffis.

Betsy Ladyzhets: And I’m Betsy Ladyzhets. 

[Instrumental ends]

Betsy: We’re the co-founders of The Sick Times. 

James: I’m James Salanga, and I’m Still Here’s producer.

Miles: Many public health authorities are ignoring the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Betsy: But here at The Sick Times, we’re not. So we continue to bring you the latest Long COVID news and commentary each week.

Miles: Without pandemic denial, minimizing, or gaslighting.

James: And we’ll do that on our website, social media platforms, newsletter, and, of course, this podcast.

Betsy: Here, we share the latest on COVID-19 trends.

James: And we talk about one or a few of the stories we’ve published on the Sick Times website recently. But before we talk about the stories that we’ll be sharing this episode, I just wanted to acknowledge that we’re commemorating Long COVID Awareness Month, which is March.

And this episode, Betsy will share some of her reporting on how federal workers with Long COVID have fared under the Trump administration so far. And we’ll be announcing an in-person Sick Times event for those of you who are in New York, but for those of you who aren’t, we will be streaming it virtually.

So stay tuned for more information about how you can join in and what that’s going to look like.

Miles: And at the end, we’ll also share some other Long COVID research updates.

In today’s research, there is a new study in the journal Radiology that found long abnormalities in children with Long COVID. Also, there’s a new long COVID clinical trial testing the drug Amantadine, which is currently recruiting in Dallas, Texas.

James: Now, let’s get to our COVID forecast.

[Sound of thunderclap and light rain]

COVID-19 forecast (1:40)

Betsy: So as of the last two weeks or so, we are finally seeing COVID levels on the decline again after being in kind of a plateau for most of February.

Of course, coming down from a high level is still to a pretty moderately high level.

And the declines haven’t been huge. The differences that we’ve seen in national averages of SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater have been decreases of like 10%, 15%.

the line that I wrote in today’s COVID trends update was from a high winter plateau to potentially still a pretty high spring plateau.

So I’m really just always trying to capture the sense of even when we kind of come down from more of our surge periods in the year, the baseline level of COVID-19 spread across the United States is still high.

So it’s like your risk of getting sick never goes away, unlike for other, like, actually seasonal diseases like the flu that actually do go down and are, like, not at all a concern certain months of the year.

Also you know, as we were looking at wastewater data and healthcare indicators in the last week, we are seeing declines across most regions.

However, we are seeing declines across most regions, but regional data can sort of gloss over more specific trends at city or county or state levels. So it’s always important to look at local dashboards when you have access to them like wastewater surveillance data from your specific state or your specific county or your specific sewer shed, if that’s available to you.

And you can find that on the CDC’s website or WastewaterSCAN’s website.

We’ll link to articles that have more places you can find those.

James: Speaking of, you know, just general data tracking and specific data, how are you seeing federal cuts maybe impacting this data tracking and public health more broadly as we head into the spring and summer, Betsy?

Betsy: We are seeing, you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s now the head of HHS, Department of Health and Human Services, has a long history of questioning the safety of vaccines.

And we have other people who have come into power in the federal government recently who are just questioning these public health tools that we know work well, vaccines, masks, everything else.

And all of that really just doesn’t bode well for continued outbreaks.

You know, as we’ve seen just in the last couple of weeks, there’s a ton of measles cases in the United States, largely spreading in communities with a lot of unvaccinated kids and families.

And just last week, health authorities in Texas reported the first death of measles in the United States in more than 10 years.

So just not a great indicator of what is to come in the coming months and years here, I think.

Miles: That outbreak is very concerning. It was interesting to see that he’s sort of gotten controversy after, with recommending vaccination, and people were kind of joking it was the first time he’s had to recommend vaccination for a long time.

Betsy: Yeah. RFK Jr., he wrote an op-ed for Fox News, right?

Miles: That’s right.

Betsy: I mean, like, yes, please. Yeah. Actually, you should get vaccinated.

Like, yeah, man, it would be great if like your own charity that you worked for for many years and that supported your presidential campaign weren’t like continuing to cast doubt on —

James: Anti-vax rhetoric?

Betsy: Yeah.

James: Wasn’t there also like a measles case in, I was, there’s one in King County, Washington, and I think there was also one reported through LAX like a couple weeks ago.

Betsy: I saw that.

James: I saw a post about that too.

So there’s just, I mean, of course, it seems like he had to make a statement just because there are these cases that just keep popping up.

And obviously it sounds like they are kind of linked to travel, which, you know, given the fact that a lot of people are not really wearing masks as they travel, you know, lots of opportunities for measles to spread, unfortunately.

Betsy: Yeah, I know the latest data from the CDC that we cited in the update today, is there have been about 160 measles cases reported across the US in 2025, like in the last few weeks.

And most of those are in Texas, but there are also around 20 that have been reported in other states.

So it is something that is unfortunately spreading more widely than just the one specific outbreak that’s got a lot of headlines.

Miles: Uh, meanwhile, how are things looking with this record flu season now, Betsy?

Betsy: So similarly to the COVID trends of the last couple weeks, flu numbers are also coming down, which is great to see, but we are still coming off of a really, really high record seasonal flu season.

So there’s still a ton of flu going around.

There’s still a ton of risk of getting sick. And so it continues to be just another reason to keep wearing a high quality mask and taking other public health precautions.

James: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s it for our COVID forecast. COVID/assorted seasonal diseases and general diseases forecast, which is…

Betsy: Seasonal diseases of which COVID is not, but there is a lot of other shit to talk about potentially.

James: Yeah, just disease forecast at this point, honestly.

Obviously COVID included, but yeah, like Betsy was saying, lots of other things in the air right now, as there always are.

But some particular ones that we’re keeping an eye on.

But yeah, after a quick musical break, Betsy will share some of her reporting on what federal workers with long COVID have been facing as the Trump administration continues to make cuts.

And we’ll have more on how you can see The Sick Times in person or just hang out with us virtually in a few weeks.

[instrumental segment of theme song plays]

The Sick Times: Federal workers with Long COVID face firings, loss of accommodations, and more challenges under Trump  (7:40)

James: While the federal government has historically been a place where many disabled workers are employed, with there being over 300,000 federal workers with disabilities, some of those workers with Long COVID worry that accommodations like working remotely are being threatened under the Trump administration.

Generally, there has been this kind of rollback around working remotely.

For example, in California, Governor Newsom just announced last week that he’s requiring state workers to return to the office four days a week, which obviously, again, is prohibitive to a lot of workers who were able to work remotely for most, if not all, days of the week.

And generally, current challenges for federal workers with Long COVID, state workers with Long COVID are just part of a broader climate of ableism and COVID-19 denial that started with the Biden administration and is continuing under Trump.

And Betsy, you spoke with several federal workers with Long COVID to hear about their experiences and what they’ve been facing in the past couple of months for the past few weeks.

I’d love to hear you share some context first, particularly around why federal government jobs have historically been something that disabled workers have maybe sought out as a primary form of employment.

Betsy: Yeah. So historically, the federal government, through its various agencies and offices, has employed a lot of people with disabilities.

One way that people have gotten those jobs is through a process called Schedule A.

It’s basically like an alternative hiring process that folks can go through if they are disabled and they have medical documentation to demonstrate their conditions.

And it makes it easier for people to get these jobs.

My understanding is that it can make the application process shorter or easier or it can allow people to have accommodations throughout the interviewing hiring process.

And in addition to that, like, hiring option, the federal government as a massive employer also has a lot of infrastructure for giving people accommodations.

As with anything government related, people do have to go through some bureaucratic hoops to get that, but they do have a lot of options.

Multiple workers I spoke to were working fully remotely and had that as an accommodation due to Long COVID and were appreciative of that kind of a combination making it possible to keep doing their jobs over the last couple of years.

Miles: Yeah, so how has the situation changed in recent weeks now under Trump?

Betsy: A couple of challenges people are facing, I think the biggest one is just fear of losing your job.

I talked to one person who already was part of the mass firings and others who were concerned about this happening to them.

In particular, a lot of the federal workers who have had their jobs cut or who have been, essentially, illegally fired are what’s called probationary employees. So when somebody is newly hired at the federal government, generally they’re on probation for a year, but for people who are hired under Schedule A, that process for disabled folks that I mentioned earlier, they’re actually on probation for two years.

And as one person I interviewed sort of explained it, this doesn’t mean that you’re doing a bad job or anything.

It’s just a logistical feature of federal government employment.

So for people who are in this probationary status, they’ve really been the targets of a lot of the mass firings from the Trump administration so far. And so that was the case for one of the people who I interviewed. She was hired by the Department of Labor less than a year ago.

And so when these cuts started, her job was one of those on the chopping block.

And so in addition to this fear of being unjustly fired, people are also really worried about accommodations, particularly the ability to work remotely.

Like I said, for multiple people I spoke with, the ability to work remotely has been really, really important in helping them continue to do their jobs while having Long COVID symptoms.

And under this current climate of “You have to return to office, you have to be there in person”, people are just worried that they’re going to lose the ability to actually complete work tasks in the way that they’ve been doing with no issue in the last couple of years, or even with positive performance reviews, in the case of multiple people I spoke with.

James: Well, as these workers are losing their jobs, what kinds of things are happening next?

Like, what kind of downstream effects on their lives have these workers been telling you has been happening?

Betsy: Yeah, so a big one is just being very worried about what it would look like to enter the job market right now, particularly for folks who are kind of newly disabled with Long COVID in the last couple of years.

They’re perhaps working in industries that are not normally very flexible with accommodations or don’t normally have a lot of opportunity for remote work.

The person I spoke to who recently lost her job at the Department of Labor — we’re using the name Rachel for her in the story — you know, she was saying that if she’s not successful in getting her job back through legal recourse, like, this would be her first time looking for a new job as someone who identifies as disabled and she works in an industry that typically, you know, she would be expected to travel a lot or to go to in-person meetings a lot.

And she’s just really not sure what job hunting might look like for her.

And so I think a lot of people are in that kind of position where, you know, if they lose their current job at a federal agency, the options are potentially limited.

Another person who I interviewed is a longtime employee at the CDC. She’s been working remotely with Long COVID for the last couple of years and is now worried about either losing that accommodation or losing her job entirely.

And, you know, when I spoke with her, she was saying, like, “I’ve worked in public health my whole career. I don’t really know, like, what other kind of job I could have because public health is not something that really translates well to, like, private sector employment in most cases.”

And so I think there’s just a lot of concern about that and then as broader ripple effects, of course in the United States, your ability to get health care is very tied to your employment.

And so people are concerned about their ability to continue keeping up with medical care, being able to receive prescriptions for one person, you know, being able to get a wheelchair.

She was able to get it approved by her insurance, like in the last week or so when I talked to her.

But just important, like, devices and care options that people really need, I think, are all on the line here.

And even in the, like, immediate term, multiple people I talked to mentioned that they’ve seen increased symptoms with, like, the stress and the negative experiences of the last few weeks.

Miles: Yeah, it also seems like this is a kind of a broader trend that’s not just Trump.

[California Governor Gavin] Newsom recently is trying to push for people in office at state workers, like, four days a week.

So there’s a big push across the aisle to get people into office. And I think it’s really making it difficult.

I mean, obviously, there’s not going to be COVID precautions for a lot of people.

Betsy: Yeah, it’s like a broader climate of ableism, essentially.

There’s also been reporting recently, I think — my piece links to an article from another news outlet, just like a list of major private companies that are cutting their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

They’re not impacted by executive orders, they’re private companies, but they, you know, see where the wind is blowing and are doing some of this stuff.

And yeah, I think this is just a time where the system was already not taking care of vulnerable people, but it’s really doubling down on that right now, it seems.

Miles: I wanted to highlight this quote from Anna.

This is a pseudonym that we’re using in this story. She is another worker in science communication in the federal government.

And she said, “I entered this field to do good, yet in my role working with the federal government, I have become an unwilling foot soldier to fascism, enacting genocidal and Orwellian policies that engender my life and the lives of my loved ones and millions and millions more.”

That really stuck out to me.

This is a very alarming thing that is happening. And it’s just not to be looked over.

Betsy: I think another thing that Anna shared that didn’t make it into the story was the sense of like, you know, we wouldn’t be doing this if we had other choices, but the job market and the difficulties of being able to find work that is remote, that has healthcare coverage, that has all the other, like, basic needs that people need that people have right now met — it’s really, really difficult.

James: I think it just provides a lot more nuance into the experiences of these workers and just what workers with Long COVID in general may be facing at their workplace, whether it be at the federal government or at, you know, a private company that is similarly enacting these policies.

Betsy: Yeah. Long COVID is a labor issue and should be a labor issue.

I think this story kind of helps to show that as well.

James: There’s a cool zine about that.

I’ll link it in the transcript.

But yeah, there’s a Long COVID is a Labor Issue zine that I think someone made when the SAG-AFTRA strike was happening like two years ago that I think it’s — it’s a good resource if you are curious to read a little bit more from that framing.

But yeah, speaking about going back to just the federal government in general, you know, what other stories right now, with regards to, like, federal changes that are on the horizon, are you hoping to cover for The Sick Times?

Is there anything else that you know you wanted to highlight from the story?

I know we read a quote from Anna, but yeah, anything else?

Betsy: Yeah, I mean, I think the other important takeaway from the story is that all the workers I spoke with really emphasized the need for more community building right now.

You know, they were saying to others in the Long COVID and related disease community that this is a really important time to be checking in on your friends and your community members, trying to find out what they need, trying to find out how you can help, because that is so necessary as government institutions are abandoning us even more than they were already under Biden.

So I think that’s just important to highlight. And we’re going to keep covering all of this awful implications of the Trump administration stuff at the sick times.

One thing we’re hoping to report more on in the coming weeks is the impacts on research — people who have gotten grants from the federal government to study this disease, like, what kinds of impacts are they facing?

And we also will be keeping an eye on potential cuts to Medicaid and other federal support programs that folks have been relying on.

James: Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for sharing some of your reporting, Betsy. For folks listening, you can read the full piece on our website, thesicktimes.org, and you can also find a link to it in our transcript.

The Sick Times: Event announcement: Commemorating Long COVID Awareness Day (18:41)

James: Our last story for this part of the segment is some news about seeing The Sick Times in-person or virtually. We have an event coming up on March 18th.

Yeah, Betsy or Miles, if either of you want to take it away and say a little bit more about what people can expect if they’re hoping to go.

Betsy: Yeah, so we’re very excited to be organizing our first ever in-person event from The Sick Times.

Of course, it won’t only be in person, it will be hybrid, so folks can also participate over Zoom. We thought that was just really important to make it accessible in that way since we have a broad audience of people who live in many different locations.

But the in-person component will be in New York City, it will be at a bookstore called The Nonbinarian, in which is a queer-focused and queer-owned bookstore in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

And they are also a space that really prioritizes COVID safety, they have masks required in the store and of course we will have high quality masks required for this event.

So what you can expect if you’re planning to come, there will be a couple of different sections.

First, we are planning to have a couple of contributors to The Sick Times read their essays or pieces of their essays, so you will get to experience a couple of our favorite pieces that we’ve published live.

And then we’re going to have a short panel discussion with myself, Heather Hogan, our engagement editor and a couple of local Long COVID and COVID-19 organizers. You can expect more information from us about that in the coming weeks as we kind of get that all figured out.

And then we’re also planning to take audience questions.

So if there are things you’ve always wanted to know about The Sick Times, this is a great time to ask us, or if you have feedback or story ideas for us, we will gladly take those too.

We really just wanted it to be an opportunity to talk with readers and also to commemorate Long COVID Awareness Day and month and acknowledge that we are now five years into the pandemic. And what greater place to do that than in New York City that’s been such a huge epicenter and also has a really powerful and vibrant local Long COVID community and community of COVID justice organizing.

Yeah, anything I missed, Miles?

Miles: No, that was great. Yeah, The Sick Times live.

We’re so excited. And we hope to do more in other locations, hopefully in Los Angeles.

We’ve kind of broken up these [events this way, in New York City and Los Angeles] because our staff is based in these different places, so it makes it easier to organize with in-person events.

But yeah, we look forward to more events and are very open to more ideas from our readers. So please reach out if you have an idea for an event in the future.

Betsy: Yeah, this will be pretty small, too.

The Nonbinarian is — it’s not a huge space. So they have a capacity of up to 40 audience members.

But if this goes well, we will gladly try and do more and try to accommodate larger groups too.

Miles: Yeah, and then hopefully we can have a Still Here live one day as well.

Betsy: Yes! Yeah.

James: Yeah! If you’re interested in attending either the virtual or the New York City Sick Times live event, we will have more information about that in our transcript.

And I believe we also have a poster or a flyer about it on our social media as well.

So details are all there, and we definitely hope to see you either virtually or in-person.

And to round out the episode, we’ll have our research updates next.

Research (22:09)

[Miles’ voice echoes the word “Research” accompanied with a sound excerpted from the theme song]

Miles: This week in research, we are looking at a new study in Radiology, which is a journal.

It was a small prospective study and researchers found lung abnormalities in children with Long COVID.

The study included 54 participants, 27 of those had Long COVID and 27 were matched controls, so people who did not have Long COVID.

They were assessed through a really advanced MRI technique that measured both ventilation, or the flow of air into lungs, and perfusion, which is also known as blood flow. And it found that children with Long COVID had worse ventilation and perfusion and that those correlated with worsened symptoms, including higher heart rates and fatigue severity.

So yeah, this was an important study.

Again, it’s a smaller one, but I think these studies of Long COVID and children are super important.

It’s an overlooked part in research as we reported on at The Sick Times. So it was great to see this finding and hopefully can lead to more understanding and some treatments.

Betsy: And our other research update today is a bit of news that there is a new Long COVID clinical trial testing a drug called amantadine, recruiting participants in Dallas, Texas.

So this drug has been used previously to treat Parkinson’s disease and researchers think it could maybe help improve brain function for people with Long COVID.

This is the second clinical trial that we’ve covered testing amantadine. The first one is in Columbus, Ohio.

And this new study will enroll 30 participants, so you can find more information about that and contact details for the researcher leading the study on our website.

Just always good to see new trials starting and especially it’s great to see multiple studies looking at the same drug, particularly when they’re smaller.

This is a good way to kind of get a lot of information about whether something seems to be promising as a treatment or not.

James: Yeah, that makes sense.

And it’s cool that there are two separate kind of trials that have been running this drug.

And so, yeah, for sure something that we will keep an eye on. You can stay tuned to our research updates as I’m sure, you know, as things unfold, we’ll have more for you there, and hopefully it will be good news.

Outro (24:31) 

James: Yeah, that’s all we have for you this week. You can stay up to date with The Sick Times newsletter and our coverage at thesicktimes.org.

[Instrumental theme song excerpt plays underneath the rest of the podcast]

Miles: We’ll continue reporting the information you need to better practice care.

Betsy: Solidarity with everyone still here. 

James: This podcast and The Sick Times are supported by you. You can help us keep this work going by donating on our website.

Still Here is a production of The Sick Times, a nonprofit newsroom chronicling the ongoing Long COVID crisis. 

Our theme song for this episode is the Rude Mechanical Orchestra’s rendition of Which Side Are You On?, originally by Florence Reece. I’m James Salanga and I produced this episode. Our engagement editor is Heather Hogan and Sophie Dimitriou designed our podcast cover art. And Miles Griffis and Betsy Ladyzhets are your co-hosts and The Sick Times’ co-founders.

Thanks for listening.