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Medicine

Long Covid Knocked a Million Americans Off Their Career Paths (msn.com) 151

Posted by EditorDavid from the sick-days dept.
The Wall Street Journal reports that long Covid "has pushed around one million Americans out of the labor force, economists estimate." More than 5% of adults in the U.S. have long Covid, and it is most prevalent among Americans in their prime working years. About 3.6 million people reported significantly modifying their activities because of the illness in a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Long Covid is a chronic condition with symptoms lasting at least three months after a Covid infection, according to the CDC. Symptoms include fatigue, changes in memory, shortness of breath and trouble concentrating. Long Covid can make tasks as simple as responding to an email arduous, people with the condition say. They struggle to summon the right word or manage stress. Among its many symptoms is post-exertional malaise, which can worsen after even minor physical or mental activity. "People can't go back to work or have to significantly cut down on the amount of work that they can handle," said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunobiology professor at Yale School of Medicine.

Researchers don't know how long symptoms can last. Few people with long Covid have fully recovered within two years. Patients say their doctors have tried everything from antihistamines to blood thinners to physical therapy to acupuncture. Some people might live with the condition for the rest of their lives, said Dr. Paul Volberding, a professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco...

Some people with long Covid, which the federal government has classified as a disability, have stayed in their jobs. Human-resource managers have made accommodations including remote work, flexible hours or modified responsibilities, said Rue Dooley of the Society for Human Resource Management. "It's not going away," he said. "It's going to be one of another 100 conditions that we have to grapple with."

People were more likely to develop long Covid at the start of the pandemic, according to a study published in July in the New England Journal of Medicine. The proliferation of vaccines and changes to the virus have made people infected with Covid less likely to develop long Covid.
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Long Covid Knocked a Million Americans Off Their Career Paths More

Long Covid Knocked a Million Americans Off Their Career Paths

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  • Possible treatment : EAT (Score:5, Interesting)

    by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Saturday August 31, 2024 @12:42PM (#64751460) Homepage

    There's a possible treatment for long COVID symptoms, but it's painful, requires weekly treatments for a month or more, and only available in Japan:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I tried to get it in Europe, but nobody seems to offer it. You can do it to yourself with some practice, which I tried without success. Unfortunately there don't seem to be any really good studies of it yet.

  • It's also possible that the same group of people struggled to be productive prior to Covid as well. 1% of all workers suddenly finding an off-ramp to collect disability sounds about in line with my expectations for an over worked population. I'm not saying they don't have a disability, but that it didn't have a name before long-covid.

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      No. It is not. Your attempt at victim blaming is an utter fail and just reflects badly on you.

    • Re:It's also possible that (Score:5, Informative)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Saturday August 31, 2024 @01:38PM (#64751598)

      I'm not saying they don't have a disability, but that it didn't have a name before long-covid.

      Their symptoms didn't exist before covid, therefore they didn't have a disability. But keep up the victim blaming. I'm sure the people who have brain fog, difficulty breathing, heart palpitations, headaches, difficulty sleeping, diarrhea, constipation, loss of smell and/or taste, and more [mayoclinic.org], are perfectly content to suck off the taxpayers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hodr ( 219920 )

        Bro I have literally every one of those symptoms except constipation. The only thing "new" was the lost of smell, everything else is just a case of getting old. I still go to work 5 days a week.

        But grifters gonna grift.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Well, it's *possible*, but you've given us no reason to believe that except that it would be kind of nice for the rest of us if the people who were suffering were to blame for their own circumstances or just scamming.

      It's possible to support that believe and therefore the conviction that bad things only happen to bad people as long as you're careful not to look up any facts.

      • Well, hey, we could probably do comparisons with countries that have better social safety nets and worker protections and come to a conclusion.

        • Sure, it's estimated that 36 million people suffers from long Covid in Europe and in Japan a low estimate is about 3.4 million.

          Getting diagnosed with long Covid is very dependent on how accessible healthcare is in a region, which must be taken into account when determining the amount of cases.

          I'm sure there are some interesting statistics somewhere that can nail these numbers down so we can more accurately determine how many cases there really are, but the medical consensus is that long Covid really is a th

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          From the reviews I've seen there's a lot of uncertainty in measuring differences in prevalence between countries due to differences in reporting and criteria. There is also the difficulty that long COVID is a diagnosis of exclusion and many Americans lacking primary care don't have thorough medical histories.

          That said, if your hypothesis is correct and the rate of long COVID is mainly people seeking benefits for preexisting disabilities, then we should see very low rates of long COVID in places like the Sc

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by leonbev ( 111395 )

      It could also be people claiming to have a trendy new illness to give themselves an excuse to go on government disability and never work again.

      I mean, I can't blame some of them. There were many people in 2020 and 2021 that were getting more from unemployment than they did from their crappy food service and retail jobs that paid a dollar or two over minimum wage.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jsonn ( 792303 )
      Actually Long COVID does overlap in many symptoms with a disability that was mostly ignored 5 years ago: Constant Fatigue Syndrome.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      No. The people I know of with long Covid did not have preexisting conditions, did not struggle with work, were not burned out, did not have any kind of mental health problems or personality disorders.

      In one case we know of a young woman who was energetic, outgoing, and worked hard as well-known YouTube science communicator. She was good at it and enjoyed doing it, and is a very sharp, intelligent individual. A year and a half ago or more, she was struck with Covid and has never recovered (yes she is vacci

  • More than 5% of adults in the U.S. have long Covid

    As Feynman famously and repeatedly put it, the scientific process is about making a guess, calculating what would happen if that guess were true *and* if it were false, and comparing that hypothetical outcome to reality to see if the guess is right or if it's wrong.

    In regards to long covid, 5% of working adults being knocked out of commission would mean that *you* the average person with a social circle of at least a couple dozen people among your friends, family, and co-workers, would see at least one pers

    • Re:Nonsense number (Score:5, Informative)

      by sjames ( 1099 ) on Saturday August 31, 2024 @01:28PM (#64751566) Homepage Journal

      You need to take a stats class to start. It is entirely possible to have a circle of 24 people and not know anyone out of a 5% population. Yours is the logic of looking all over your home state, seeing no whales swimming about and concluding they're a myth, when you live in Kansas.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by GFS666 ( 6452674 )

        You need to take a stats class to start. It is entirely possible to have a circle of 24 people and not know anyone out of a 5% population. Yours is the logic of looking all over your home state, seeing no whales swimming about and concluding they're a myth, when you live in Kansas.

        Yep, this. He's like the guy who says "Hey, all these safety rules and regulations about lead, asbestos, seat belts, not driving and drinking, etc are baloney! I did all that and I'm still alive and well at 80!" while conveniently not understanding that there are a lot of people who did die of those things at an incredibly young age. And what he does not understand is that while HE doesn't have any friends affected, other people will have multiple people affected so that the average is 5%.

        • And what he does not understand is that while HE doesn't have any friends affected

          More like "while he does not understand that he doesn't have any friends who have told him they are affected".

      • Reminds me of flat earthers who have clearly never been near the ocean and watched ships disappear over the horizon so think it's all a lie.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by caseih ( 160668 )

          Or been to flat plains country where you can see a car drive over the horizon. To say nothing of city lights dropping over the horizon as you drive into the rural areas.

      • It is entirely possible, but the bigger the social circle, the less likely it becomes.

        Let me count my social circle who I encounter frequently enough to notice reduced functioning:
        At home: 1 wife, 2 kids
        At work: 4 managers, 3 secretaries, 1 office mate, 5+ coworkers I regularly meet face-to-face
        Wife's work: 5+
        Extended family: 2 parents, 2 in-laws, 4+ extended family on both sides
        Via the kids: 8+ adults, 10+children
        Neighbors we talk to: 6+ adults, 9+ kids
        Totals: 36+adults of all ages, 21+ children.

        5% in adul

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          How many of the adults you know through your kids would even discuss a health matter with you at all? Did you have a look at their labs after their last doctor visit? Do you even know when/if they went to the doctor?

          • You'd be surprised about how much gossip the women transmit. I know the work schedules of dads I barely exchange words with just because my wife struck up a conversation with the other moms on the sidelines at soccer practice.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sjames ( 1099 )

              You'd be surprised how many husbands won't even tell their wives about serious health concerns.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fgouget ( 925644 )

          It is entirely possible, but the bigger the social circle, the less likely it becomes.

          Let me count my social circle who I encounter frequently enough to notice reduced functioning: [...] Totals: 36+adults of all ages, 21+ children.

          How many of them are vaccinated? Per the article vaccination reduces the likelihood of long covid rendering your example meaningless.

          the supermarket checkout clerks,

          As if you would notice if one of them dropped out because any sort of illness.

          • How many of them are vaccinated? Per the article vaccination reduces the likelihood of long covid rendering your example meaningless.

            5% is 5%. If the claim is 5% an no other information, then I have to assume my workplace and my town are representative. If the claim is 5% of the same people who have all the other health problems (obesity, smoking, etc etc) then that might be different. But that isn't the claim.

            the supermarket checkout clerks,

            As if you would notice if one of them dropped out because any sort of illness.

            I'd notice if they weren't there anymore because of permanent disability. Would you?

      • His methodological objection is very convincing though.. just asking people "hey do you think you have this syndrome that causes fatigue?" is next to meaningless.

      • Now see, if he had ended things at "I don't know of anyone with it" you might have a point. But that same stats class you so proudly champion SHOULD tell you that a survey with leading questions immediately invalidates the responses. If it doesn't, the teacher and person who came up with the curriculum if they are not the same should both be fired and blacklisted from anything to do with statistics.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          If he had left out the whole "I don't know anyone with it" as "proof", I probably wouldn't have even replied because the study is a bit weak. It seems well established that Long Covid is a thing, but the stats aren't that well nailed down.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Calydor ( 739835 )

      Approximately 1 in 6 people in the world are Chinese. How many people in your social circle are Chinese? Not just of Chinese descent a few generations back; actual Chinese people in China.

      • About half. At work and at home. Either we're getting overrun by the yellow peril or you've made a poor analogy.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Calydor ( 739835 )

          Did you see the part about 'in China'? With your username I doubt you're living and working in China, in which case the proportion would probably be greater than half anyway.

          • I did. But then I reasoned that proof of existence of something can come from direct observation of a thing, or it can come from direct observation of a direct consequence of a thing too. The latter is usually more accessible.

            So I can believe in a place called China by seeing people from there over here. And I can believe in a thing called long covid if I see its consequences.

            I see Chinese people, all over, so I believe there's a place out there called China.

            I don't see people disabled by long covid, even t

    • More than 5% of adults in the U.S. have long Covid

      As Feynman famously and repeatedly put it, the scientific process is about making a guess, calculating what would happen if that guess were true *and* if it were false, and comparing that hypothetical outcome to reality to see if the guess is right or if it's wrong.

      In regards to long covid, 5% of working adults being knocked out of commission would mean that *you* the average person with a social circle of at least a couple dozen people among your friends, family, and co-workers, would see at least one person afflicted by it.

      You would have to be exceptionally anti-social or exceptionally exceptional to find yourself in a social circle untouched by such a highly prevalent condition.

      I know of no such people. I am not exceptional. So I claim the 5% number is incongruous with my observations.

      Digging further, the 5% number comes from an ACS survey with a leading question explicitly asking the survey participants if they suffered from long covid, and extrapolates from there.

      That's not even a scientific measurement, it's literally an opinion poll.

      So no, 5% of American working adults have not been sidelined by long covid.

      I think you're half... no 25% right.

      First, even if the average person would know at least one person afflicted that doesn't mean they'd know that person is afflicted. In general, most people don't announce health issues to their full social circle, especially something like long-COVID that can have the air of controversy.

      As to the survey. The definition of long-COVID is a symptom that persists for more than 3 months after diagnosis. So in a survey I'd expect some of those respondents to include people who'd

      • Of course, there's also the people who have long-COVID but answer negatively in the survey because they're in denial, didn't make the association. or the symptoms were mild enough they didn't realize they had COVID at the time.

        The other way you can tell this is diving from the 10m platform into the deep end of pseudoscience is that you have people saying with all seriousness that long covid can both sideline you from gainful employment and be so subtle that the afflicted individual could miss it entirely. At the same time.

        • Of course, there's also the people who have long-COVID but answer negatively in the survey because they're in denial, didn't make the association. or the symptoms were mild enough they didn't realize they had COVID at the time.

          The other way you can tell this is diving from the 10m platform into the deep end of pseudoscience is that you have people saying with all seriousness that long covid can both sideline you from gainful employment and be so subtle that the afflicted individual could miss it entirely. At the same time.

          Oh stop playing stupid. There's multiple [thelancet.com] studies [thelancet.com] that demonstrated long term cognitive effects [nejm.org]. The last one reported something, on average, equivalent to a 3 point IQ drop. Do you really think you'd notice a 3 point IQ drop?

          Long COVID could be a binary condition that hits some people and not others, or it could be a broad continuum where most people experienced some permanent health issues from COVID, but only for a minority are they so bad as to be debilitating.

          Personally, I'm not as healthy as I was pre-

          • If we're defining the affliction down to a 3 point IQ drop that no one (if they're being honest) could measure, then we're making ever so slightly more progress than if we'd been debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

            The original (sensetionalized) claim is that a very large number of American workers have been derailed by the aftereffects of covid.

            When that didn't fly, "derailed" turned into "became imperceptibly stupider."

            Okay. Maybe y'all did. Or maybe "imperceptibly" is too generous o

            • If we're defining the affliction down to a 3 point IQ drop that no one (if they're being honest) could measure, then we're making ever so slightly more progress than if we'd been debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

              The original (sensetionalized) claim is that a very large number of American workers have been derailed by the aftereffects of covid.

              When that didn't fly, "derailed" turned into "became imperceptibly stupider."

              Okay. Maybe y'all did. Or maybe "imperceptibly" is too generous of a qualifier for people argued with a straight face that sending kids to school was anti-intellectual.

              Again, you're playing dumb.

              We have good evidence that a significant fraction (possibly most) people who got infected with COVID had some long term deficits, even imperceptible ones.

              And we have good evidence that a small minority have some really significant long term deficits.

              Common sense tells us that we're probably seeing a lot of the same mechanisms in both groups, hitting some folks a lot worse than others.

      • The definition of long-COVID is a symptom that persists for more than 3 months after diagnosis.

        When I got sick during the pandemic, I had the vast majority of the listed symptoms for 11 months. I was sick like nothing I had ever experienced before for the first two days, then the worst of the symptoms evaporated all at once. The remaining symptoms persisted for the rest of the 11 months.

        I never got a COVID diagnosis, and my test came back negative. However, it seems very likely to me that I had persistent COVID during that time. I had never in my life been that sick for that long. My doctor said I ha

        • The COVID tests are unreliable, and doctors are still thrashing around blind trying to diagnose it

          Which renders this discussion, about a globe-spanning pandemic with hundreds of millions of known positive cases in this country alone, totally absurd.

          If with such high prevalence it still defies scientific analysis, I can only conclude that it does not exist as a physical disease. Perhaps a few people do get it bad, but the rest is just a collective delusion.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      You missed the biggest determinative factor in calculating prevalence -- how you define the disease.

      You seem to be using a definition of "long COVID" in terms of its most debilitating cases, ones that are so severe you would instantly know whether someone had it at a glance [youtu.be]. Defined that way you probably don't know anyone with that version of "long COVID". But the medical definition of long COVID is any symptom which persists than twelve weeks after the patient is no longer detectably infected.

      Do you know

      • I'm 39 years old. At one point either I or my wife experienced many of those symptoms. Trouble is, this was before 2019, so if I were of the hypochondriac persuasion, I'd have to pin it on chemtrails or cell towers or or planetary alignments instead of the virus du jour.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          Sure. These are symptomatic of many possible conditions. That's why medical history is important in this diagnosis. For example have you experienced these symptoms for over three months continuously? If not you don't meet the long COVID diagnostic criteria, even if the symptoms emerges after a COVID infection.

        • Before 2020, there were a number of patients who had similar lingering symptoms after some major illness, and they were often dismissed by doctors as it just being in their head, because the various tests don't show anything dramatically wrong with them, at least not that would be expected for the symptoms they have.

          It wasn't until 2020 when doctors started paying attention, and realizing that a small percentage of people have ALWAYS had these sort of issues after getting sick, but it never had a name, so i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      FWIW, I know (at least) a couple of such people, though both have largely recovered by now. (OTOH, I do suspect that 5% is including really mild cases of long COVID.)

      The thing is "Would you know if that person had long COVID?". I think most people would try to hide it from everyone except their really close acquaintances and their doctors. So the answer is probably "usually, no".

  • See how it affected Physics Girl (Score:4, Informative)

    by bungo ( 50628 ) on Saturday August 31, 2024 @01:18PM (#64751532)

    I think that there will be a lot of misinformation and lack of understanding on this issue. Please go and watch the videos from Dianna, Physics Girl.

    https://www.youtube.com/@physicsgirl/ [youtube.com]

    Previously, I had no idea myself about how it could affect someone. Dianna went from someone who was so full of life to someone that can't even get out of bed. No-one could accuse her of being lazy and not wanting to work before getting long Covid, and is now using it as an excuse to not work now.

    I hope she recovers. It would be a bonus if she ever started to create videos again.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      Totally agree. I think she'll recover eventually, but her overall health and vitality will never quite be the same. I hope she can reinvent herself and that the spark that she carried so well will still shine. These kinds of illnesses can really damage one's mental health as well as physical health. So far her attitude has remained positive, and her husband is certainly a saint in the true sense of the word. Will be a long road for them yet. As it is for every person in the world with long covid.

    • Yes, what happened to her fucked her up bad.

      That doesn't make her representative of the broader population, any more than the victim of any other freak accident involving a lawnmower or hair dryer is representative of all people using lawnmowers or hair dryers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's so bad I know of people who have opted for an assisted death, rather than live like that. It can be completely debilitating.

      It can also be a lot milder, but still awful to live with. Constant tiredness, aching muscles, laboured breathing etc.

      I've lived with the very similar CFS/ME for 15 years now. Part of me hopes that now it has become so widespread there will be more research and new treatments, but I'm sceptical that anything much will come of it. The underlying cause is not understood yet.

      I manage

  • ... did the cool kids drop the mask mandates?

    I mean, what changed, other than the invisible memo went out that "we don't do that anymore, because mumble mumble"?

  • This article was a good reminder to go schedule a booster shot. Got an appointment at 3pm.

  • Which affects nearly as many people but no one is crying or victim blaming them.

    Saying it affects otherwise healthy people is just ignoring that they were healthy with an undiagnosed vulnerability; Wouldn't want to say weakness because that is not considered PC even though everyone has some form of weakness of which they are unaware.

  • The More Scary Thing That is Being Left Unsaid (Score:3)

    by GFS666 ( 6452674 ) on Saturday August 31, 2024 @02:08PM (#64751658)

    There are two things that are being left unsaid about the Long Covid Phenomenon that are quite scary. First: Long Covid has obviously got to be a sliding scale. There are people who develop it so much that they become disabled. But there has got to be a much larger amount of people who are mildly affected by the virus such that they are impaired but still functional. So instead of functioning at say 100% they are now functioning at 90/95% or maybe like 75%. Over time that will still have a massive effect on their quality of life and lead to medical issues down the line and higher medical costs to society.

    The 2nd problem is that Long Covid sufferers are still being generated by the waves of Covid infections. With the uptake of the Covid vaccines and the lessening lethality (if appears) of the Covid Virus, this has obviously decreased. But it's still happening with a corresponding detriment to people, families and society. What we need is a broad based universal vaccine for Covid/Sars viruses so that we can stop this disability creating virus and start the process to eliminate it from the world. Is is crazy to me is that there is no push in our administration to create such a broad based vaccine when many such candidates appear to exist.

    • It mutates rather fast.

      It could be the case that long covid is a form of dysfunctional breathing which can be caused by most respiratory diseases, which was only magnified by the severe symptoms during the initial pandemic.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The pandemic revealed a massive weakness in our response to these viruses. Our societies are basically unwilling to stop the spread of the disease now that it appears milder, but the reality is that every infection risks getting Long COVID.

      We Are even seeing mask *bans* in some places.

      If the conspiracy theorists are right and it was a bioweapon, it's proven extremely effective: consider the economic damage that Long COVID has done, combined with our unwillingness to do anything meaningful about it. It's goi

  • Search for the Physics Girl. She is restricted to bed.

  • 5% of the American population is an order of magnitude more than one million people. 36 million people affected is around 10%. If you figure half of those left the workforce to take over care of someone with long Covid, that's about at the 5% rate stated elsewhere in the article.

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