Christine Selvidio wakes up every morning exhausted, dizzy and nauseous. She wears earplugs around her own children and dims the lights in her house. More than six years after first contracting Covid-19, the former hairdresser and mother of two spends most of her time in bed or on the couch.
“The pain and suffering is a daily walk through the jaws of hell,” Selvidio told the Vermont Senate Health and Welfare Committee last Friday.
Selvidio was among the first wave of Americans infected. She got sick in January 2020, before most people had even heard the word coronavirus. Her initial illness was mild enough that she tried to keep working, seeing fewer clients and shifting what she could to home-based appointments. But by 2024, she said, her “illness won.” Vibrations that felt like she was swallowing a phone or plugged into a wall gave way to hallucinations, rashes, fainting and migraines. For a long time, no one believed her. It took a visit to a New Hampshire physician for a gallstone removal before a doctor finally suspected long Covid.
Her story is far from unique in Vermont. A Department of Health report found that 11% of Vermonters who tested positive for Covid at any point experienced symptoms lasting three months or longer. Millions of Americans report living with the condition, yet no clear diagnostic tests exist, and no widely accepted treatments have emerged.
Dr. Katherine Menson, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the University of Vermont Medical Center, told the committee that many long Covid patients originally experienced only mild to moderate symptoms from the initial infection. Weeks or months later, those same patients found themselves battling exhaustion after even minor physical activity, persistent brain fog and gastrointestinal problems.
Doctors suspect multiple mechanisms drive these symptoms. Immune system dysregulation, persistent inflammation and lingering viral particles in the body all appear to play a role. The sheer range of symptoms, Menson explained, is part of what makes long Covid so difficult to treat.
“There’s just so many symptoms that can present with long Covid,” she told the committee.
Ylan Roy, a grandmother and former teacher, appeared alongside Selvidio before the committee. Roy can no longer walk as a result of her long Covid symptoms and now uses an electric wheelchair. Spending an hour on the floor playing with her granddaughter requires her to rest for most of the day before and after.
“I have to rest all day before and after just to be able to play with her on the floor,” Roy said.
Both women came to the Senate committee seeking reform, pressing legislators to take the illness seriously at a policy level. Their testimony lands at a difficult moment. Federal health research infrastructure has faced significant budget pressure in recent months, leaving patients and advocates increasingly dependent on state-level action to push for better diagnosis, treatment access and disability accommodations.
The picture these women paint carries real weight for Vermont communities. Long Covid cuts across age groups and prior health status. It removes people from the workforce, strains family caregiving networks and places sustained pressure on a health system already stretched thin in a rural state. For many patients, the condition remains invisible to outsiders precisely because it so often originates from what seemed like an ordinary illness.
Selvidio’s case captures that invisibility clearly. She got sick before official case counts even existed in the United States. She tried to keep working. She adapted. And then, years later, her body stopped cooperating in ways that took years more to explain.
The Senate Health and Welfare Committee has not yet announced what actions, if any, it will take in response to the testimony. For Selvidio, Roy and the thousands of other Vermonters managing this condition, the wait for recognition, research and meaningful policy support has already stretched on for years. They are asking their senators to help shorten it.
