Study: Long COVID has significant impact on UK workforceA new study published in Applied Economics Letter estimates long COVID symptoms have forced 80,000 UK residents out of employment as of March of this year.The estimate is based on data that show 5.5% of people infected with COVID-19 will develop chronic illness symptoms that limit their activity, including shortness of breath, brain fog, and headaches."Continued waves of coronavirus infections, which may go on for a number of years, will keep people off work while sick with Long Covid.
Many will lose their jobs and some will remain out of the workforce for a long time or permanently," said Donald Houston, PhD, of the University of Portsmouth and a co-author of the study, in a university press release.Houston and coauthor Darja Reuschke, PhD, of the University of Southampton, said that, for the first time in recent history, there are more job opportunities in Britain than unemployed people, a phenomenon that followed the high infection rates seen during the Omicron wave this past winter.
At the peak of Omicron in February of 2022, they said 2.9 million people of working-age (7% of that population) had experienced persistent COVID-19 symptoms for more than 12 weeks.Since the start of the pandemic, roughly 69% of the British population has tested positive for COVID-19 at least once.
The authors estimate that, of those aged 17 to 69 who are double-vaccinated, 9.5% will go on to develop long COVID lasting more than 12 weeks after testing positive for COVID-19, and 5.5% will develop activity-limiting long COVID.