How widespread is long COVID? It’s put millions of US adults out of work, expert says By Julia Marnin July 19, 2022 5:31 PM (Fr. Miami Herald)
How
widespread in long COVID? It’s put millions of U.S. adults who were
previously infected with COVID-19 out of work, an expert testified at a
House hearing. If you have heard about long COVID — a condition in which
symptoms of a coronavirus infection can linger for weeks, months or
years — you may wonder how widespread it is.
By
February, more than half of the U.S. population was estimated to have
already been infected with COVID-19, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Long COVID may occur at least four weeks
after a COVID-19 infection, the agency notes.
About
28 million working-age adults in the U.S., and likely more to date,
have developed the condition after testing positive for the virus,
workforce expert Katie Bach, a nonresident senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution, testified at a House subcommittee hearing on
Tuesday, July 19.
“Long
Covid is leading millions of Americans to reduce their work schedules
or stop working,” Bach wrote in testimony ahead of the House Select
Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing.
Currently, about 16 million people in the U.S. are estimated to have long COVID, according to federal data, and 3.3
million adults are estimated to be out of work full-time because of how
the condition has affected their health, Bach said. This is 2.4% of
full-time workers in the U.S.
Additionally, an estimated 2.6 million more workers dealing with long COVID symptoms have had their work hours reduced by 25%, Bach testified.
Among
affected workers are those in health care, according to written
testimony by Dr. Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, a physiatrist and professor
at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, who
spoke at the hearing.
Verduzco-Gutierrez
said she has treated a number of nurses and physicians experiencing
long COVID, including some who “have not been able to return to the
operating room or to the frontline or the patient bedside.”
Meanwhile,
Bach said “the number of people not working due to long COVID will
likely continue to grow as more people become infected.”
The
hearing was held as the infectious omicron subvariant BA.5 made up
roughly 78% of COVID-19 cases nationwide for the week ending July 16,
CDC data estimates show. UC Davis Health has described it as the “most
easily transmissible” subvariant.
In May, the CDC estimated 1 in 5 adults may develop at least one post-COVID symptom following a COVID-19 infection, McClatchy News previously reported. For those 65 and older, the risk is slightly higher.
Of
the Americans currently out of work because of long COVID, “many of
these impacted families lose necessary income and employer-based health
insurance at a time when they need it the most,” House Majority Whip
James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., the subcommittee chairman, said in his opening
remarks at the hearing.
Symptoms of Long COVID
“Each
of these persons with Long COVID are suffering and has a story that
needs to be heard. Each of them has a different course – some even starting as asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 – with lingering and debilitating symptoms,” Verduzco-Gutierrez wrote.
Most people diagnosed with long COVID were never hospitalized due to their initial infection, a study published as a white paper in May found, McClatchy News previously reported.
Long COVID patients can have “a wide range of symptoms,” according to the CDC, and some include:
Fatigue
Fever
Breathing troubles
Cough
Chest pain
Heart palpitations
Brain fog
Headache
Dizziness
Digestive issues
Depression or anxiety
Muscle pain
“I
have had cancer survivors get Long COVID. They tell me that their
post-COVID fatigue is 100-times worse than their cancer fatigue ever
was,” Verduzco-Gutierrez said.
Another
witness at the long COVID hearing, Cynthia Adinig, who described
herself as a formerly “mulitasking supermom,” said before her COVID-19
infection in March 2020, she ran two businesses while homeschooling her
child, was involved in her local church and volunteered for a charity,
according to her written testimony.
“Unfortunately,
I can no longer be part of those spaces in the capacity that I used to
because from time to time now my body becomes overwhelmed with nausea,
dizziness, intermittent paralysis, fluctuating oxygen levels, crippling
joint pain and unexpected high heart rate.”
‘Immediate changes’needed
Another
witness who testified at the hearing, Hannah Davis, a co-founder of the
Patient-Led Research Collaborative, called for “immediate changes” when
it comes to long COVID, according to her written testimony.
“We
need an urgent public information campaign on Long Covid, to explain
that it happens after mild cases and to all ages, is debilitating, and
requires immediate pacing and rest.” In terms of lessening long
COVID’s “economic burden,” Bach named at least “five critical
interventions that the government can support.” They include:
Better long COVID treatment
Improved sick leave
Greater access to Social Security Disability Insurance benefits
Improved employer accommodation
Better data collection
“To
fully assess the labor market impact of long Covid, and to track the
efficacy of any interventions, better data collection is required,” Bach
wrote.
In Clyburn’s opening statement, he acknowledged that there is still more to learn about long COVID.
“The millions of Americans experiencing Long COVID, and their families, are desperate for answers and support,” he said
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