"The COVID-19 pandemic is well into its second year, but countries are only beginning to grapple with the lasting health crisis. In March, a UK consortium reported that 1 in 5 people who were hospitalized with the disease had a new disability after discharge1. A large US study found similar effects for both hospitalized and non-hospitalized people2. Among adults who were not hospitalized, 1 in 10 have ongoing symptoms 12 weeks after a positive test3. Treatment services for the long-term consequences of COVID-19 are already having to be absorbed into health and care systems urgently. Tackling this requires a much clearer picture of the burden of the disease than currently exists. Tracking disease cases and deaths has advantages in a health emergency — they are easily collated, and, to some extent, trends can be compared across countries. But continuing the use of such simplified metrics heightens the risks of underestimating the true health impact on a population. It focuses policy and public discourse on the immediate prevention of deaths and on the economic impact of lockdown policies, ignoring the long-term disease-related disabilities that will also affect well-being and productivity. To tackle the pandemic’s inequitable impact, researchers must also count how COVID-19 contributes to ill health, and do so comprehensively. If scarce resources are allocated with only the death count in mind, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with younger populations might not receive their fair share. This could be devastating for countries that rely on the productivity of people of working age for economic development. Choosing the right metrics can also help to identify and address inequity within countries. Evidence from many nations suggest that members of minority ethnic communities are more likely to catch COVID-19 and die from it, as well as being more likely to die at a younger age4 (see also Nature 592, 674–680; 2021)." More at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01392-2
