Hon. Stan Kutcher: Honourable senators, my question is for Senator Gold.

As this pandemic has unfolded, we are coming to understand that the COVID virus has both immediate and long-term negative impacts on health. “Long COVID” is a phrase that has now entered our vocabulary. Early studies suggest that substantive numbers of those who contract COVID can develop long COVID, even those who had mild cases. Recently, I spoke with Nobel Prize nominee Dr. Peter Hotez about the need to better understand the emerging impacts of the neurodegenerative effects of long COVID, including higher rates of dementia, Parkinson’s disease and mental illnesses, to name a few. Others have raised similar concerns about negative long-term cardiac and vascular impacts.

Simply put, we are facing an anticipated deluge of serious and expensive health impacts of long COVID, including in children, and we have limited knowledge about its epidemiology, pathoetiology and potential treatment.

What is the Canadian government doing right now to ensure that we have a comprehensive, integrated national strategy to improve our understanding and treatment of long COVID?