A few years ago, Jaime Seltzer was helping coordinate research projects, grant applications and funding for a Stanford research group studying a condition called myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS)…. “What is it going to take for researchers to take ME seriously?” she and her colleagues often wondered aloud.

The morbid answer, they hypothesized, was a pandemic.

TIME: Have We Been Thinking About Long-Haul Coronavirus All Wrong?