Experts are concerned that the Covid-19 crisis has caused collateral damage to the HIV fight, which could take years to reverse, according to the government’s 2018 HIV Surveillance Report.

Faced with the Covid-19 pandemic, the federal government’s ambitious new plan, led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, to intensify the fight against the country’s persistently persistent HIV epidemic looks to have failed miserably.

The annual HIV Surveillance Report, released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the first comprehensive bird’s-eye picture of the nation’s four-decade-old epidemic since the coronavirus upended society. The research, which includes data for 2020, comes on the heels of alarming previous results that showed HIV testing dropped as stay-at-home orders spread across the country in March of that year.