Jackie Bos can no longer work and is living in her sister’s shed. She is among thousands of Australians whose incomes have vanished as a result of long COVID.
Long COVID is costing the Australian economy at least $5.7 billion a year as tens of thousands are left unable to work by the debilitating disease.
While the exact level of absenteeism caused by long COVID is not known, new analysis by Impact Economics and Policy, using a “lower range” estimate that an average of 40,000 people are unable to work due to the illness, puts the weekly cost to gross domestic product at $110 million, or $5.7 billion annually. If the highest estimates for long COVID absenteeism is used the cost to GDP rises to $880 million a week, or $46 billion a year.
Dr Angela Jackson, an economist at Impact Economics and Policy who did the costings analysis, said the figures “highlight the long-term economic costs from COVID-19 and the ongoing need for public health measures including vaccination and education”.
The federal parliament’s inquiry into long COVID, which received almost 600 submissions, is due to report its findings shortly.
Writer and editor Jackie Bos is one of the thousands whose working life has been disrupted by long COVID. She contracted the virus a year ago and has still not recovered. Her symptoms included breathing difficulties, persistent “brain fog” and memory loss, chest pain, nerve pain, internal tremors, palpitations, dizziness, rashes, fatigue and weight loss.
“Unfortunately, it is not past tense, but it is improving,” she said.
Bos tried to return to work last May but felt too unwell to continue. After using all her sick leave and holiday leave she started receiving social security payments in January.
‘Mounting an appropriate response to long COVID is especially challenging … it cannot be ignored simply because it is inconvenient.’A submission to the federal parliamentary inquiry into long COVID
As a permanent part-time employee who worked just over three days per week, she was earning $1400 net per fortnight. She estimates she has lost about $9000 in income since January, not including any additional freelance work she would normally do.
Bos, 57, has been living in a shed on her sister’s property in the Southern Highlands since late August.
“I’ve got that family support and company,” she said.
A submission to a federal parliament inquiry by Mary Angeles, of Deakin Health Economics, and Professor Martin Hensher, of the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, says there is growing international concern that long COVID is preventing people from working “at levels high enough to impact the overall labour force”.
The submission says people in Britain and the US with long COVID typically reduce their work hours and around one in 10 reduce them to zero. Researchers from the University of Southampton and the University of Portsmouth in the UK estimate that 80,000 British workers have left the workforce due to long COVID.
Modelling by Angeles and Hensher for the Deakin-Menzies Institute submission (and used by Impact Economics and Policy to estimate the economic cost of long COVID-19) showed the number of people whose daily activities are “limited a lot” by long COVID was at least 35,000, although under a worst-case scenario that number increases to almost 197,000.
“These people will still be experiencing symptoms that limit their daily activities a lot, with likely impacts on their ability to work with potential for long-term disability,” the submission noted.
“Mounting an appropriate response to long COVID is especially challenging … it cannot be ignored simply because it is inconvenient.”
A study by the Brookings Institution published in August 2022 found that more than 4 million Americans were out of work due to long COVID. It put the cost of lost wages in the US at $US170 billion a year (and potentially as high as $US230 billion).
Madeline Cooper, a 38-year-old mental health worker, has had long COVID since June last year.
Her employer “let her go” last December because she was unable to work sufficient hours.
“I’ve been on JobSeeker since January because I’m not eligible for the disability support pension,” she says. But Job Seeker doesn’t even cover my rent. I’m very thankful my family has been able to help me out financially, then I also use my savings.
Cooper says life has become “much smaller” since contracting long COVID.
“Prior to COVID, I lived a pretty normal life,” she said. “I worked full time. I looked after my baby niece one afternoon a week. I would take her for walks to the library, we’d go to the playground, I would walk to and from work 40 minutes each way. I’d go out and see friends and catch up for brunch and all those kinds of things. Now I can do very little of that.”
The estimates of the economic cost of long COVID by Impact Economics and Policy (for Australia) and the Brookings Institution (for the US) focus on lost earnings.
But Harvard University professor of applied economics, David Cutler, says any economy-wide assessment of long COVID costs should also take account of lost quality of life.
Last July Cutler estimated the “implied cost of reduced health” and quality of life due to long COVID in the United States to be a mammoth $US2.2 trillion ($3.3 trillion) over a five-year period.
When lost earnings (put at $1 trillion over five years) and additional medical care costs ($528 billion) were included, Cutler found the overall cost of long COVID in America to be $US3.7 trillion ($5.5 trillion) equivalent to about 17 per cent of the output of the US economy in 2019.
Those vast totals, says Cutler, make policies to address the effects of long COVID an urgent priority.
“With costs this high, virtually any amount spent on long COVID detection, treatment, and control would result in benefits far above what it costs,” he concluded.
Angela Jackson, from Impact Economics and Policy, says COVID-19 is likely to permanently increase the cost of healthcare in Australia which is already equivalent to more than 10 per cent of GDP.
“Being responsive to this will make a lot of sense in terms of long-term health outcomes, but also due to the economic impacts,” she said.
Because long COVID can affect relatively young people, and potentially keep them out of the labour force for an extended period during prime working years, it has the potential to affect the long-term earning capacity of many sufferers.
“COVID represents something that may well reduce the productive capacity of the economy in the long term, so it’s something we do really need to get a handle on, and make sure we respond to it well,” says Jackson.
The effects of long COVID could even widen the gap between rich and poor.
A Burnet Institute submission to the parliamentary inquiry says there is “clear evidence” COVID-19 is more likely to impact people with social and structural disadvantage and people with previous health issues.
If long COVID follows that pattern, low-income households would be disproportionately affected. Over time, that threatens to exacerbate existing social and economic inequalities.