LOST working hours in 2022 due to lingering effects from Australians suffering from long COVID cost the Australian economy around $9.6 billion, or one-quarter of the country's GDP that year, a new study has uncovered.
The stunning economic hit was calculated by researchers from The Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney with The Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Melbourne in a study published in The Medical Journal of Australia.
Researchers looked at business data on working adults 18 years and older between Jan 2022 and Dec 2023 showing lost labour hours, and those who completed reduced hours due to symptoms up to a year after being diagnosed.
The study found that at the peak of the pandemic in Sep 2022, up to 1.3 million Australians were living with symptoms of long COVID, with 55,000 of these being children ineligible to receive a vaccination.
Researchers say governments and health policymakers must place a greater emphasis on long COVID as a public health priority.
Australian National University Professor, Quentin Grafton, said workers still suffering COVID symptoms months after their initial diagnosis resulted in 100 million lost labour hours.
"This is equivalent to an average loss of eight hours per employed person, per year, including both full-time and part-time employment," he said.
"Our research likely underestimates the economic impact of long COVID because it does not account for losses such as healthy employees who can't work because they're caring for others with long COVID," Grafton said. ML
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