Washington August 28, : Long Covid is keeping up to four million full-time workers in of employment in the US and the annual cost of these lost wages is estimated at $170 billion per year (and possibly up to $230 billion) A new study has found.According to the non-profit Brookings Institution, if long Covid patients don’t recover at higher rates the economic strain will continue increase for the US.
“To provide a sense of the magnitude of the problem: If the Covid population grows by only 10% per year, in 10 years, the annual cost of lost wages will be half one trillion dollars” The report cautioned.
A recent study , published in The Lancet found that 22 percent of individuals with chronic Covid were in a position to work because of poor health and another 45 percent had to limit their hours of work.
“Since this report is primarily focused on working-age Americans we will take the labour force participation rate of 75 percent.Thus, of the 16.3 million working-age Americans with long Covid we can conclude that 12.2 million of them were in the workforce,” the findings showed.
If you take the typical US pay rate of $1,106 per week The estimate of 3 million who are out of work because of long Covid is equivalent to $168 billion in income loss.
“This is close to one percent of the total U.S.gross domestic product.If the actual total number of individuals who are out of work is close to 4 million, that’s an expense of $230 billion,” the report mentioned.
In the UK One-quarter of businesses cite the long Covid as one of the primary reasons of long-term absence of staff.
Harvard University economist David Cutler discovered that 12-17 per cent of Covid-19 patients are suffering from at least three symptoms after 12 weeks of beginning the treatment, and that decline in employment among those with severe impairment is 70%%.
Utilizing Covid-19 case count and the rate of participation in the labour force, Cutler estimated that 3.5 million people are out of work because of long Covid, with five years of lost wages of $1 trillion or about $200 billion annually.
“Critically this number is not representative of the total cost of long Covid because it doesn’t include the effects like the reduced productivity of those who are ill and the significant health cost of care that patients incur and the reduced productivity of caregivers,” said the report.
Cutler estimates that medical treatment and the loss of quality of life due to the long Covid costs an additional $544 billion every year.
A new study has suggested that that vaccinations lower the chance of prolonged Covid by just 15.
“While we aren’t able to determine the possibility of contracting long-term Covid following repeated infections, a study conducted recently discovered that each repeat infection increases the likelihood of lasting health effects,” in the report.
There are at most five crucial government interventions that could help reduce the burden on the economy of long Covid Better treatments and prevention options, more pay for sick leave, better workplace accommodations, greater accessibility to disability insurance and improved data collection on the economic impact of long Covid.
na/dpb
