No, hang on, what is your evidence here? When we needed COVID vaccines, the research was done by private entities. That suggests that when the chips are down the private sector is better at research. And that funding was going in to companies that were already researching vaccines because it is obvious that whoever developed one would become rich. And the main contribution of the government was lowering the regulatory barrier to getting things approved quickly - the companies involved already had the technologies and processes ready to go, the vaccines were technically ready almost immediately. Why would treating long COVID be different? The main blocker is going to be that it is illegal to roll out treatments or that there will be substantial red tape.

It was notable how in the early days of COVID the ... was it the NIH? One of the TLA agencies ... centralised COVID testing under their banner, disrupted the private sector response and shipped out broken testing kits. The private market would have been all over the problem like flies on a grubby sheep. They're much faster at getting research done on health stuff, the financial incentives are absurd. People will pay literally anything for health.

Also a lot of the foundational research of modern society was done based on whatever rich people thought was interesting at the time. That is how a lot of the math was turned up. It is a perfectly fine strategy.

> Markets will instead allocate funding to the least-adventurous surest bets.

So the NIH is doing what, ignoring sure bets at curing long COVID? That shouldn't be encouraged.

Besides, you are wrong. Ever hear of something called the "Metaverse"? Companies regularly make big risky gambits that don't pay off.