‘Significant Burden’
“If you look at the intermediate-term consequences right now, we’re already seeing it” on the lungs, heart, neurological and psychological systems, said File, who is also chair of infectious diseases at Summa Health, a hospital system in Akron, Ohio. “This is going to have a significant burden on our health-care system for years to come.”
The economic impact will be much greater if younger survivors endure decades of coronavirus-related disability, said Olga Jonas, a former economic adviser at the World Bank who studies the impact of contagions at Harvard University in Boston. Polio, a paralyzing disease, would have led to an estimated $215 billion in treatment costs in the U.S. from 1955 to 2015 had vaccines not become widely available, a 2006 study found.
#COVID19 is this generation's polio. Patients have mild, moderate and severe illness
Large numbers of patients will have physical, cognitive and psychological disability post critical illness that will require longterm management
There has been little recognition so far of Covid-19’s ill-effects on younger adults, said Hannah Wei, a 30-year-old long-hauler in Canada, who helps other sufferers through survivor support group Body Politic. An analysis of responses from 640 patients collected by the group in April and May found “recovery is volatile, includes relapses, and can take six or more weeks.”
Although all respondents experienced symptoms consistent with Covid-19, 48% were either denied testing or not tested for another reason. That can makes obtaining financial assistance for rehabilitation and disability services more difficult, Wei said.
‘Especially Neglected’
“In the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of my age cohort weren’t the ones being tested, so we’ve been especially neglected from the system and not recorded on official numbers,” said Wei, who caught Covid-19 in March. “Now we’re seeing a lot of these people become long-haulers.”
Even if such cases are identified, there’s still no guarantee the economic consequences will be adequately quantified, said Janet Currie, an economics professor at Princeton University. For example, employment surveys favored by economists don’t routinely ask if people have disabilities, she said.
Also, the long-term economic effects of Covid-19 will ripple well beyond those who caught the coronavirus, Currie said. Mental health problems emanating from lockdowns will sap work performance and productivity, health-care disruptions may exacerbate other medical conditions, and people needing to provide care for others will have less time for paid work.
In Limbo
There are also those like Kyle Merryman, who is in limbo over his own classification.
The 39-year-old U.S. Iraq-war veteran developed Covid-like symptoms in January. By the end of April he’d visited the emergency room eight times with symptoms including shortness of breath and blurry vision. Due to the timing of his illness, Merryman wasn’t tested for Covid-19, and an antibody test in June came back negative. Still, he has no other explanation for how he went from being completely healthy to unable to work.
He was recently diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome -- a problem with the autonomic nervous system. The condition, which may develop after a viral illness, often causes heart palpitations, chest pain and brain fog, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
“I’m really not sure what my future holds,” said Merryman, who had to take leave from a technology job in Florida and move in with his mother in Texas. “My illness has already put a big financial strain on my family and me.”
This story was provided by Bloomberg News.