Long COVID Has Never Been Taken Seriously. Here’s Where It Left Us | The Tyee:
We are living through a mass disabling event. Statistics Canada estimates
that there are 1.4 million COVID-19 longhaulers in Canada. As the virus
continues to circulate, our ranks keep growing. The World Health
Organization estimates that 10 to 20 per cent of COVID-19 infections result in long COVID.
Many of those people recover after several frustrating months, while others, like me, develop potentially life-long chronic health conditions.
The B.C. government, eager to move on from
COVID-19, barely acknowledges the growing crisis. At this point, I feel
as though the silence must be deliberate. If our government’s current
plan for long COVID is to literally let hundreds of thousands of British
Columbians develop a chronic illness for which there is no treatment
and minimal support, then it’s past time we had an honest conversation
about it.
Long COVID is already affecting our labour market. While Canada thus
far has made little effort to track its impact, U.K. government analysis
suggests that long-term illness due to long COVID is driving a
significant share of the decline in labour market participation.
In the U.S., long COVID could be keeping as many as four million Americans out of work. Harvard economist and professor David Cutler estimates the cost of their lost wages to equal US$1 trillion.
A Lancet study
of longhaulers infected prior to June 2020 found that 22 per cent were
unable to work, with another 45 per cent working reduced hours. Based on
these statistics, we can reasonably assume there are hundreds of
thousands of Canadians unable to work due to long COVID, and even more
working reduced hours.
This calls for a long-overdue strengthening
of our social safety net, as well as a cultural shift towards flexible
accommodations to enable people with chronic illness to participate to
the fullest extent they can in economic activity, among other aspects of
public life.