Severe illness due to COVID-19 peaked around the start of 2021. But as many as 400 million people worldwide, at some point, have experienced a condition known as “long COVID,” which is when symptoms persist for two to three months after an initial COVID-19 infection.

Some people with long COVID improve with time, while others have experienced lingering, debilitating symptoms with the chronic illness. A report last week by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) projects that long COVID’s significant social and financial costs will continue well into the next decade.

Cost to OECD nations up to $135 billion a year 

The OECD is a forum of 38 democracies with market-based economies, including the United States, Japan, and most of the European Union. The U.S. Department of State notes that OECD countries account for three-fifths of world gross domestic product (GDP).

Among the report’s most striking findings is that over the next decade, long COVID could cost OECD health systems up to $11 billion annually. 

The indirect economic costs stemming from reduced workforce productivity are even greater. Factors include people with long COVID leaving the workforce, illness-related absenteeism, and a decline in overall productivity due to people working while sick. If assuming low or moderate ongoing transmission of the virus, the report estimates the loss in GDP across OECD countries at 0.1 to 0.2%, or $135 billion per year.

The sustained economic costs underscore the potential that long COVID is a “lasting structural change to labour markets and economic productivity,” according to the report. 

Long COVID in the US

Despite these sobering findings, the report notes that few countries have a national plan or strategy in place to address long COVID. The report says that overall management of long COVID has been hindered, “First by a lack of recognition of its existence by the medical community, and subsequently by underestimation of its prevalence and impact across all sectors of society.”

Patients already knew this crisis is enormous and it isn’t over.

The US government recognizes long COVID, and Congress has allocated more than $1.8 billion to the Researching COVID-19 to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) program to advance the prevention and treatment of the condition. But grants for some research projects were canceled last spring. Around that time, the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice was closed.

The report’s findings don’t surprise Meighan Stone, founder and executive director of the DC-based Long COVID Campaign.

“Patients already knew this crisis is enormous and it isn’t over,” said Stone, adding that the United States urgently needs national strategies, funding, and care to match the global evidence highlighted in the report.