Key Points
- A study shows that the national economy lost almost $10 billion in lost productivity in 2022 due to the long COVID period.
- People with long COVID experience long-term symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, and joint pain.
- Experts say the study shows that the government needs to place more emphasis on fighting the disease.
More than a million Australians who contracted long COVID at the height of the pandemic experienced difficulty working or reduced their working hours due to the illness, a study has found.
Academics from the Australian National University (ANU), University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the University of Melbourne have found that around 100 million working hours were lost in 2022 in due to the inability of adults with this condition to work or reduce their hours.
The study shows that this cost the national economy nearly $10 billion in lost productivity.
Up to 1.3 million Australians were estimated to be living with long COVID at the time, according to the research.
“We estimate this equates to economy-wide losses, on average, of around $9.6 billion in 2022, or a quarter of Australia’s real gross domestic product growth this year “there,” Quentin Grafton, a professor at ANU and one of the study’s authors, said on Monday. .
The $9.6 billion lost in productivity translates to an average loss of $7,385 per person.
“Our research likely underestimates the economic impact of long COVID because it does not take into account losses such as healthy employees who cannot work because they are caring for others with the illness. of long COVID.”
Most workers affected by this disease were aged 30 to 49.
such as fatigue, shortness of breath, and joint pain that some people experience after having COVID-19.
Valentina Costantino, from UNSW’s Kirby Institute, said the study showed MPs needed to place more emphasis on tackling long COVID.
There are likely as many as 873,000 Australians still living with the disease more than four years after COVID-19 first hit the country, Costantino said.
“A predominant goal of COVID-19 health policy is the prevention of hospitalizations and deaths from acute COVID-19, with less attention given to long COVID,” she said.
Another study author, Professor Raina MacIntyre from UNSW, said strategies to reduce COVID-19 and therefore long COVID should focus on indoor air quality and better ventilation.
“Financial assistance for long COVID patients, at least for those who cannot work due to their symptoms, such as access to a disability pension, would reduce their economic burden,” MacIntyre said.
In June, the federal government announced $14.5 million in grants as part of a $50 million outlay to produce better evidence on strategies for managing long COVID in the community.
