They can't put off dealing with this forever, long covid affects too many people. And many of those people are desperate, because it's almost impossible to get disability payments for something you can't prove you have. Via CNBC.com:
There are 10.7 million unfilled jobs in the U.S., according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some economists point to the high numbers of workers quitting amid the Great Resignation. New research highlights another troubling factor that may bear part of the blame: long Covid.
A Brookings Institution report published Wednesday says an estimated 16 million Americans between ages 18 to 65 are experiencing Covid symptoms long after infection. The condition, dubbed long Covid, can include brain fog, fatigue, breathing problems, muscle pain, headache, chest pain and even anxiety or depression — all symptoms that can make it challenging for people to work.
The report estimates that 2 million to 4 million of those people are currently out of work due to long Covid. That’s almost as high as the number of Americans who quit their jobs each month amid the Great Resignation: About 4.2 million quit their jobs in June and nearly 4.3 million quit in May and April, respectively, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In other words, the jobs lost to long Covid could make up about a third of the country’s current labor shortage. And the Brookings report says it’s costing the U.S. economy in a significant way.
Having gone through this for more than two years now, I can tell you if I wasn't on Social Security right now, I'd be screwed.
A July 2021 study from the Patient-Led Research Collaborative measured the condition’s effect on patients’ work over the course of seven months. Only about 27% of long Covid patients worked as many hours as they did before failing ill. Roughly 23% weren’t working at all, as a direct result of long Covid. That included being on sick leave, disability leave, quitting, being fired or being unable to find a job that would accommodate them.
It's difficult to be productive when you're falling asleep all the time. In the early days, it was a major effort to walk across the room and put a dirty dish in the dishwasher.
What are we going to do about it?
