<
https://whn.global/with-millions-suffering-long-covid-is-devastating-the-economy/>
"Over 15 million American adults — about 1 in 17 — are currently living with
long COVID, according to the CDC. While some have tried to claim that long
COVID is gradually getting better, there’s not much evidence to suggest that’s
the case. In fact, since the CDC began tracking long COVID in 2022, more than
5% of American adults have consistently reported long COVID symptoms at any
given time.
I pointed this trend out to someone who was unaware of long COVID and the sheer
number of people who appear to be suffering from it. “If many people are
gradually developing long COVID,” they asked me. “Wouldn’t we see it in the
economic data?” Yes, we would. And in fact, we are.
In the UK, the number of people with long-term sickness has been rising. From
July 2019 to October 2023, the number of adults who were too sick to work
increased by over 30%. Because of this, there are now fewer people working in
the UK than there were before the pandemic began.
A similar story is playing out in Germany. Workers are now taking so many sick
days that it’s pushed the country’s economy into recession, according to a
study published by the VFA. The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, came to a
similar conclusion this past winter, stating that the German economy likely
shrank in the fourth quarter of 2023 due in part to “the relatively high
sickness rate.”
But what about the US? The economy is growing, and the number of jobs now
exceeds pre-pandemic levels. The US has been more aggressive with encouraging
booster shots, so maybe that’s a factor. But what’s likely a bigger factor is
immigration: In the last few years, most of the population growth in the US has
been due to immigration. The same is true for employment growth. The country as
a whole now has more jobs than before COVID, but there are actually fewer
US-born workers than there were in 2019. The US appears to be importing the
healthy workers it needs.
Research shows that people who work in public-facing jobs are more likely to
develop long COVID than people who don’t. There are several possible reasons
for this, but the simplest might just be that people who work these jobs tend
to get infected more often. Assuming this is true, you would expect certain
jobs to be especially difficult to fill — a lot of people who were once
qualified to fill them have gotten sick. And the people you bring in to replace
the sick people will eventually get sick, too.
And this is what we see, with persistent worker shortages in many public-facing
jobs, including teachers, prison guards, and child care workers."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: June 27, 2024
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-106975074
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
