According to the data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 24 million adults in the U.S. suffer from the after-effects of long COVID. And research by the Brookings Institute in August shows that around four million Americans lost their jobs due to the after-effects of long COVID. 

32-year-old Charlie McCone is a long-COVID patient living in San Francisco. After he was infected with COVID-19 in 2020, Charlie developed persistent breathing difficulties, fatigue and memory loss, resulting in him becoming disabled. 

CGTN Stringer invited Charlie to talk about how his life and work changed with long COVID. He said that long COVID patients are a group of disabled people being neglected. In his opinion, the U.S. government hasn't issued a public health warning against long COVID, leading to the public's ignorance of the prevalence and severity of long COVID, resulting in a greater public health disaster.