As I slogged through the parking lot, a man emerged from the supermarket and immediately locked eyes with a button I wore that read, “Long COVID Awareness.” He scoffed and spit at me as he said, “That’s a load of shit.”
A feverish pain shot through every fiber of my body as I slowly made my way toward the store entrance. My heart felt like it was pounding through my chest, and my lungs hungered for air. I’m a 30-year-old veteran of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division — who was struggling to walk across a parking lot after my second “mild” SARS-CoV-2 infection turned into Long COVID in August 2023.
I was too drained and sick to muster a reply, stunned by the callous disregard a stranger showed for my illness. I used to run for miles every day, the last thing I expected was to barely be able to walk across a parking lot and now I had to deal with this random man?
It was one of the first times I had left my apartment for anything besides a medical appointment in nearly four months. The discrimination first filled me with rage, then ignited an obsession to advocate for a patient population that was often too sick to do it for themselves. A few days later, I lay in my apartment in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, watching the world move on, and decided that if I was ever able to do something about infection-associated chronic conditions (IACCs, a category of complex chronic illnesses that includes Long COVID), I would.
Now, two years later, I’m organizing the first-ever IACC Case Competition. On October 31, at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor, top graduate students will compete to develop innovative business solutions for the IACC community. This event, which will be open to the public, will include testimonials from people with Long COVID and an expert panel, as well as the competition itself, which will offer $10,000 in prizes.
Since developing Long COVID, I’ve battled debilitating symptoms, even as I applied for and began my MBA at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. My conviction was that if the government wasn’t providing solutions, perhaps the private sector could.
The scale of this crisis is immense: tens of millions of Americans have been impacted by Long COVID. The disease can affect anyone regardless of current health status or age, including an estimated 5% of all U.S. military veterans receiving care with Veteran Affairs and 5.8 million children, according to a 2024 review paper.
My personal experience reinforced this urgency. I consulted 56 medical providers across seven hospitals in four states, and consistently encountered a lack of awareness, no standard of care, and no effective symptom management. The frequent, helpless response was, “This is too new, we see it all the time, but we don’t know how to help you.” (I’d like to give special recognition to the now-closed UNC Long COVID Recovery Clinic for acknowledging I wasn’t alone.)
This frustrating medical journey simultaneously ignited my advocacy efforts. I’ve spoken at the Lincoln Memorial for Long COVID Awareness Day and on podcasts like Voices of Long COVID, Break Away, and WTF Nation Radio, a station for and by veterans.
Through the advocacy group Solve ME, I attended the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation’s Edge of Medicine convention in New York, where I connected with researchers like Amy Proal, Akiko Iwasaki, and David Putrino. These experiences educated me on current research and patient advocacy movements, solidifying the critical reality: Millions are sick, and an opportunity exists for business to be a conduit for change.
With this newfound understanding, I set out to recruit fellow MBA candidates at my business school to develop the first international case competition focused on IACCs like Long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), and more. A task I initially thought would be difficult proved easy, as my peers empathized with my story and saw the daily toll this illness had on me, when I barely made it to class each day.
A task I initially thought would be difficult proved easy, as my peers empathized with my story and saw the daily toll this illness had on me, when I barely made it to class each day.
We plan to follow the precedent of case competitions resulting in businesses starting initiatives. A recent example, the 2025 Global Innovation Challenge at Butler University, had ten student teams analyze Indiana Medicaid patient data and uncover the key drivers of healthcare costs. Their output resulted in the competition’s sponsors, Hylant and Parkview Health, implementing the teams’ findings to improve healthcare outcomes while lowering healthcare spend. We hope our contestants will create solutions that will be adopted and implemented by firms exploring opportunities in the IACC market.
Businesses are apprehensive to engage in this market, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News — it’s a scientifically challenging group of conditions, and few companies want to fund new treatments. Private investors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and government agencies see Long COVID as too risky an investment because its underlying mechanisms aren’t yet fully understood.
However, the creation of a groundbreaking drug isn’t the only avenue for business to make a positive impact. Startups like Visible and RTHM have demonstrated the opportunity to succeed in the IACC market by providing patients with a way to take back control. And powerful nonprofits like the Schmidt Initiative for Long COVID are poised to fund innovation.
Our case competition team has a daunting task ahead of us. We are currently self-funding through tax-deductible sponsorships from organizations and individuals. Our current sponsors include Solve ME, Intermountain Health, RTHM, Meo Health, CompendiRx, Long Covid Families, the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, and DxTx.
Help us drive awareness and industry engagement by being a part of it. Whether that is as a patient speaker, an expert panelist, a competitor, an audience member, a sponsor, or a donor — no amount of participation is too little. Often I ask myself, How can a patient population like ours drive change when so many of us are too sick to leave our homes? Let us be your voice.
If you’re interested in starting an initiative of your own, here is some advice: Identify the portion of the problem you are trying to solve, define what the end goal of your initiative looks like, identify what resources you may need, and develop a time-bound plan to bring your initiative to fruition. Patient advocacy is a collective effort. Without each of us doing our part, no matter how small, solutions will not appear.
Let us come together to fuel the innovation, solutions, and change so desperately needed by millions with IACCs.
This event isn’t just about a competition; it’s about creating the conditions for our patient population to reclaim their lives, for new business opportunities to emerge, and for a healthier future to be built for us all. So no one else will ever again have to be in a similar situation like I was in that parking lot — with no access to care, being berated as I tried to advocate for my health in the only way I could at the time.
This event isn’t just about a competition; it’s about creating the conditions for our patient population to reclaim their lives, for new business opportunities to emerge, and for a healthier future to be built for us all.
The IACC Case Competition will take place on October 31 at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor. Options to participate include:
- Apply to compete
- Sponsor the event
- Donate
- Register to attend (in person or virtually)
- Speak at the event as a patient and/or expert: email iaccrosscasecomp@umich.edu
Armani Guerra, a military veteran, former healthcare consultant, IACC patient advocate and MBA Candidate at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, is devoting his life to bettering society through his personal mantra: “Everyone deserves access to equitable, affordable, and quality healthcare.”
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[…] was driven to start the case competition by his own experience with Long COVID, which he described in an op-ed for The Sick Times last month. About a dozen of his classmates helped organize the event; it featured leading […]