Opinion: Long COVID is debilitating to me and 65 million other people. Where is the urgency to treat it?

Mass disability is fucking expensive, actually.. You can care about fiscal responsibility without throwing inconvenient human beings under the bus.

Even with the nebulous definitions, the significant economic impact of long COVID is clear. In July 2022 update of earlier figures, David Cutler of Harvard University estimates that the total economic cost of long COVID is $3.7 trillion. That’s $11,000 per capita or 17% of the 2019 gross domestic product (GDP).

Cutler subdivides these costs into three components:

Quality of life (QALY), which comprises 59% of the overall cost, or $2.195 trillion Lost earnings of $997 billion Medical care spending: $528 billion

The Brookings report warns that Cutler’s estimate may actually be incomplete in that it does not include the economic impact of lower productivity (i.e., due to caretaking for others or working while ill).