Three years into the global COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated four million Americans report that long COVID is severely impacting their daily lives. Scientists are still trying to better understand the condition that brings with it severe brain fog, blood clots, and a whole host of awful medical conditions that don’t go away. Now, a study published August 21 in the journal Nature Medicine found fallout from COVID-19 can persist even two years after infection.

Biden is cleverly increasing regular workers bargaining power by letting covid disable millions!

The team also tallied the risks for over 80 different complications that are associated with long COVID and turned it into a health metric called a disability adjusted life year (DALY). Each DALY stands for one year of typically healthy life lost to illness. The team found that long COVID created over 80 DALYs, for every 1,000 people who weren’t hospitalized due to their initial infection.

Based on the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease study, long COVID creates a higher burden of disability per every 1,000 Americans than cancer (roughly 50 DALYs) or heart disease (about 52 DALYs).

“Our findings highlight the substantial cumulative burden of health loss due to long COVID and emphasize the ongoing need for health care for those faced with long COVID,” said Al-Aly. “It appears that the effects of long COVID for many will not only impact such patients and their quality of life, but potentially will contribute to a decline in life expectancy and also may impact labor participation, economic productivity, and societal well-being.”

Oh wait, some good news:

The team noted one encouraging note that the risks of death or hospitalization to those who were not sent to the hospital—the majority of people infected with the virus— declined and became insignificant at six and 19 months.

I'm glad covid is over and we don't have to worry about reinfections!

Decreasing the risk of long COVID should be a focus of public health policy, according Al-Aly. “Reducing the risk of infection and transmission with updated vaccines — including vaccines that block transmission — may be a critical strategy to reduce the risk of long-term health problems,” he said. “We also need an urgent, coordinated approach that matches the scale and gravity of long COVID to find treatments as soon as possible.”

I'm sure our new leadership at the CDC will get right on it!