The public health and economic burden of long COVID in Australia, 2022–24: a modelling study, 2024, Constantino et al.

Abstract
Objective: To estimate the number of people in Australia with long COVID by age group, and the associated medium term productivity and economic losses.

Study design: Modelling study: a susceptible–exposed–infected–recovered (SEIR) model to estimate the number of people with long COVID over time following single infections, and a labour supply model to estimate productivity losses as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP).

Setting: Australia, 2022–2024.

Main outcome measures: Estimated number of people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) during 2022–2023 (based on serosurvey data) who have long COVID, 2022–2024, by age group; estimated GDP loss during 2022 caused by reduced labour supply attributable to long COVID.

Results: Our model projected that the number of people with long COVID following a single infection in 2022 would peak in September 2022, when 310 341–1 374 805 people (1.2–5.4% of Australians) would have symptoms of long COVID, declining to 172 530–872 799 people (0.7–3.4%) in December 2024, including 7902–30 002 children aged 0–4 years (0.6–2.2%). The estimated mean labour loss attributable to long COVID in 2022 was projected to be 102.4 million (95% confidence interval [CI], 50.4–162.2 million) worked hours, equivalent to 0.48% (95% CI, 0.24–0.76%) of total worked hours in Australia during the 2020–21 financial year. The estimated mean GDP loss caused by the projected decline in labour supply and reduced use of other production factors was $9.6 billion (95% CI, $4.7–15.2 billion), or 0.5% of GDP. The estimated labour loss was greatest for people aged 30–39 years (27.5 million [95% CI, 16.0–41.0 million] hours; 26.9% of total labour loss) and people aged 40–49 years (24.5 million [95% CI, 12.1–38.7 million] hours; 23.9% of total labour loss).

Conclusion: Widespread SARS‐CoV‐2 infections in Australia mean that even a small proportion of infected people developing long COVID‐related illness and disability could have important population health and economic effects. A paradigm shift is needed, from a sole focus on the immediate effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) to preventing and treating COVID‐19 and treating long COVID, with implications for vaccine and antiviral policy and other mitigation of COVID‐19.

Med J Aust 2024; 221 (4): 217-223. || doi: 10.5694/mja2.52400
https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2024...-long-covid-australia-2022-24-modelling-study
PDF: https://www.mja.com.au/system/files/issues/221_04/mja252400.pdf
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Associated news coverage:
ABC News (Australia): "Long COVID has cost the Australian economy billions in lost work hours, new research says" (link)

 

Thank you @Hutan. I really appreciate all your analyses.

 

ABC news posted it on twitter and almost all the comments are either "it's the vaccines" or "it's the lockdowns / breakdown of society because of pandemic measures". As is tradition. And as we know, most MDs seem to have the same opinion. It's a complete omerta on the medical forums, where any mention of LC usually leads to being banned, comments deleted, threads locked down, or at best downvoted.

It's absurd how medicine is completely blind to the harm they are causing with their arbitrary disbelief of chronic illness. It's completely surpassed the impact of the MMR vaccine Lancet debacle, proably 100x already. This is likely the most impactful boon for the conspiracy crowds in all of history. Paid for by our taxes.

Even worse is that half the blame is on the "lockdowns" / mental health, which is basically the most common takeaway you hear from MDs and public health authorities. And this is where real disinformation becomes powerful: when it erases the notion that truth even exists, that everyone lies, no one tells the truth. When the lies authorities tell overlap with similar lies from bad faith actors, their entire credibility is erased. And they're totally oblivious to it. They'd rather blame TikTok "sickfluencers" than do any self-reflection.

And yeah this is so important:

The typical burden of illness is that about 90% of total health care costs for an individual are spent in the last few months of their lives before they succumb to illness. But this usually happens after the age of retirement. Here the burden is actually two-fold: it affects people of working and child-rearing age, but it also makes morbidity for older people worse. Which is also an added burden on adults who care for elderly parents. And to systems that can't even meet half the demand to begin with.

I really wonder where the calculation that killing old people out of working age is effectively a cost-saving approach plays in. I cannot accept that it's not part of it, but they obviously aren't counting the fact that it affects working age people, making that calculation completely wrong because it offets all the "savings". This is a huge undercount for sure. Disasters that are so costly that they affect a significant % of GDP are rare. And this one is entirely the fault of the authorities and experts in charge of it. Masterful gambit, sirs and madams.

 

Just to point out that there was an earlier paper from 2023 that attempted to quantify the economic effects of ME/CFS in Australia that may be useful for comparison. That paper used a small patient cohort (n=175; 48 consented to records access; 23 carers completed), and self-reported diary entries - albeit designed in collaboration with a patient-advisory group - to estimate cost burden; I suspect that, as the authors acknowledge, their methodology also underestimated the economic effect. Severity of disability was the most significant factor associated with the total per-patient costs. A few snippets:

(ETA: Seems there was a separate thread for this one.)