Health economic outcomes and national economic impacts associated with Long COVID in England and Scotland, 2025, Kwon, Raynor et al.

SNT Gatchaman

SNT Gatchaman

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Health economic outcomes and national economic impacts associated with Long COVID in England and Scotland
Kwon, Joseph; Mensah, Joseph; Milne, Ruairidh; Rayner, Clare; Lawrence, Román Rocha; De Kock, Johannes; Sivan, Manoj; Petrou, Stavros

Background Two million people in the UK suffer from Long COVID (LC), imposing substantial health economic impacts. This study aimed to: 1) assess longitudinal changes in health utility scores and economic costs of LC, and number of services received at LC specialist clinics and clinic region to capture care intensity; 2) assess whether volume of services received responded to health needs; and 3) estimate the national economic impact of LC.

METHODS
LC patients from 10 specialist clinics participated in the LOCOMOTION study. Patient-reported outcomes measures (EQ-5D-5L, C19-YRS and Health Economics Questionnaire) were completed on a digital platform. Associations were assessed between changes in economic outcomes (EQ-5D-3L utility, health economic costs) and number/type of LC specialist services received and region. Per-person values of quality-adjusted life-year losses, public sector costs, productivity losses and informal care costs were multiplied by LC prevalence to estimate national economic impacts.

RESULTS
There was a statistically significant reduction in public sector costs over time. There was no significant association between the number of specialist services received and change in health utility scores. LC specialist clinic and outpatient service utilisation corresponded to health need and had significant regional variation after controlling for health need. LC is associated with a substantial economic impact nationally, estimated at £8.1 billion annually and £24.2 billion since its emergence, comparable to the annual cost of £9.4 billion for stroke.

CONCLUSION
The effectiveness of LC specialist clinic services warrants further research. The substantial national economic impact of LC warrants a nationwide LC care strategy.

Link | PDF | The European Journal of Health Economics [Open Access]
 
Conclusion —

This study found small improvements in EQ-5D-3L utility score in LC patients receiving care in LC clinics. There was no significant association between the number of service types received at LC specialist clinics and changes in health status. By contrast, higher number of service types was significantly associated with reduction in public sector costs, though caution is warranted before interpreting this as evidence of intervention effectiveness. […] Finally, LC imposed a substantial economic burden on the national workforce, family caregivers and the public sector with the monetary value of this combined burden estimated to be around £8.1 billion annually and £24.2 billion in total since the emergence of LC. This calls for concerted efforts to implement nationwide LC care strategies, with particular focus on vocational rehabilitation for these patients.
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Good grief this completely unaccountable system. They find a slight reduction in costs because cases are lower than at their peak, and people recover naturally. The clinics have no impact on anything, because they are based on useless models. The idea that they... I'm sorry I don't even know what it means for the clinics to "correspond" to need. They have nothing to do with the needs, they are worse than useless, they are actively harmful.

So the problem was the same as on day one: it's a massively expensive problem with incredible suffering, and nothing competent is being done about it.
The paper said:
The effectiveness of LC specialist clinic services warrants further research
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They do not. They are worthless crap. On purpose. They are widely criticized for it, and it's well-acknowledged that there are no treatments, so it's actually a real wonder what these clinics are even doing, because they sure aren't learning anything.

The disconnect between the patients' reality and the health care industry remains complete opposites.
This also meant that the association between the number of services received at LC specialist clinics and public sector costs was present independently of the change in HRQoL.
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Why would they?! They are widely criticized as useless and based on delusional fantasies about psychosomatic this and that.
This calls for concerted efforts to implement nationwide LC care strategies, with particular focus on vocational rehabilitation for these patients.
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Why vocational rehabilitation? Based on what? Madness? This is literally what they're already doing, almost everyone out there is basically Dr Magooing it, pretending like what's been happening the whole time hasn't been tried.

You couldn't build a more useless system if you tried. Not legally. It would have to be comically corrupt to do worse than this. Just as bad is easy. Worse? Good luck with that. This system is built to fail systematically at problems like this.
 
So, for fun's sake, I decided to search, and although there are a few instances of using magoo as a verb ("magooing it"), this is the first instance of someone using it in the context of health care with proper title, using the form "Dr Magooing it".

History in the making, folks. You read it here first, and nowhere else.
 
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