Health Systems and Employers Are Counting the Economic Costs of Long Covid

Long Covid is putting a silent strain on work and health, say officials and economists, who warn that efforts to determine the cost of the disease are leaving authorities “groping in the dark.”

The impact of long Covid – defined as symptoms that persist or develop three months after an initial infection and last for at least two months – has dealt a lasting blow to the productivity of healthcare systems, with far-reaching implications for the wider workforce.

But four years after the outbreak of the pandemic, attempts to estimate how large and lasting the impact will be are hampered by a lack of data that could accurately quantify the impact of Long Covid on the labor market and the finances of healthcare providers.

“We have increasing evidence that the burden of long Covid is still increasing the pressure on our health systems,” said Hans Kluge, Europe regional director of the World Health Organization. “But countries are not consistently monitoring and reporting the data. We need better reporting, surveillance and diagnostics, but also data on hospitalizations, mortality and healthcare costs.”

Without this, he warned, “we will continue to be left in the dark about our policy decisions.” The WHO aims to determine the extent of long-Covid among health workers involved in the rehabilitation of Covid patients in Armenia, Georgia, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom.

An EU estimate suggests that the long Corona crisis may have reduced the labor supply in the EU by up to 0.5 percent in 2022, equivalent to more than a million full-time employees. Studies in the US and UK reached broadly similar conclusions – suggesting the condition is responsible for recent increases in work absenteeism in many countries.

But no one knows how many people who stopped or reduced work due to Covid were forced to leave their jobs permanently – and how many were able to return, either in a reduced role or gradually resuming their previous roles.

Tiko Bakhtadze, a 36-year-old nurse from Tbilisi, Georgia, who became seriously ill with the virus at the start of the pandemic, suffered from long-lasting Covid symptoms that caused her to “not be as productive as she used to be for a while “. “.

For example, persistent memory problems meant she had to take detailed notes when returning to work. Now largely recovered, Bakhtadze insists she never abandons her patients or endangers their safety.

It is far from clear how long economies will be affected. An estimated 36 million people in the WHO European region, which includes 53 countries with a total population of nearly 1 billion, may have suffered from long Covid symptoms in the first three years of the pandemic, Kluge said. He added that the prevalence of the condition was about 1.7 percent of the EU population in 2021 and almost 3 percent in 2022.

In the US, the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey shows that 1.7 percent of American adults reported “significant activity limitations” as a result of long Covid in February and early March this year.

However, reliable data is sparse, making it difficult to say whether Long Covid is a growing problem or primarily affects people who fell ill at the start of the pandemic and have not recovered.

A rare data release last month from Britain’s Office for National Statistics – which conducted a new study into trends in self-reported Covid-19 symptoms over the winter – found that 2 million people, or 3.3 percent of the population, in England and Scotland described themselves even as patients with Long Covid. Half of them had suffered from it more than two years previously. Among working-age adults, 0.5 to 1 percent of the overall population said long Covid had severely limited their ability to carry out everyday activities, the data showed.

Insurers Aviva and Legal & General both said long-term Covid claims from their income protection schemes were now too low relative to the total to provide figures.

While British business groups say employers are becoming increasingly concerned about the rising cost of health insurance for their employees as NHS waiting lists push people to seek private healthcare, Covid has long not featured prominently in conversations about workplace health Role.

However, the scale of the problem is not always visible to employers, as some people have left the workforce for good, while others feel there is a stigma associated with Long Covid, making them hesitant to tell their boss.

Scientific research suggests that the impact of Long Covid on employees could be significant – particularly through cognitive impairment or so-called brain fog. According to the latest international findings from the journal General Hospital Psychiatry, up to 28 percent of people infected with Covid suffer from long Covid illness, and almost one in four of them suffer from brain fog.

One in six UK manufacturers cited Covid-19 and self-isolation as the top reasons for long-term employee absences in 2023, according to a survey of 152 companies by Make UK, an industry body.

The burden is likely to be greatest in the healthcare system. Hiring temporary workers to cover staff shortages proved costly. In Germany, official data shows that the number of temporary healthcare workers increased by 8.7 percent in 2021 compared to the previous year, largely due to the need to replace healthcare workers who are sick or leaving the profession.

In the UK, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 NHS staff were off sick due to long Covid in 2023, according to an analysis by the BBC, while a separate study by researchers at the universities of Portsmouth and Southampton estimated that long Covid had caused 80,000 people to do so The workforce will leave the country by March 2022.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents health leaders in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said: “There is evidence that long Covid is slightly more common among health workers” because they are more likely to contract the original one “Wild type” infected. from the virus.

But he added: “We are still quite a way from understanding the extent of the impact on the health of the general population and the resource challenges of actually supporting people with long Covid.”

The uncertainty surrounding the disease is compounded by the fact that it is not always possible to separate the effects of Long Covid from those of Covid itself and a host of other viruses, as well as the deteriorating mental health of many health workers who have weathered the pandemic .

Carmen Scheibenbogen, a clinical immunologist who runs an outpatient clinic at Berlin’s Charité that specializes in long Covid and myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome, said the average number of sick days taken by health workers in Germany doubled between 2020 and 2023.

This is not just due to Covid – other respiratory infections such as the flu and respiratory syncytial virus also played a role – but also diseases that appear to have another cause could actually be due to long Covid, she emphasized.

Because long-term Covid cases are likely “underreported,” a subset of patients diagnosed with problems such as depression or muscle pain also likely suffered from the disease, Scheibebogen said.

The emergence of the disease offers important lessons for health systems, employers and policymakers, said David Cutler, a professor of applied economics at Harvard University.

“We need better treatment to help GPs treat long Covid better. “We also need to help employers learn how to enable workers who suffer from it to be as productive as possible.”

Cutler added that more in-depth research into the best therapies for people with long Covid is also needed. “It’s a lot of people, it’s a big deal and it stays under the radar,” he said.