Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/health/long-covid-work.html

by lxm • 3 years ago

73 159 3 years ago

raptor5564• 3 years ago

I've recently realized that I've been unusually tired, daily, and lack the usually high ambition and drive I had prior to January 2020, which is when I caught COVID.

I never got the vaccine and I'm curious if my symptoms are related to COVID, or related to being a few years older, or changes to exercise schedules, or a general change in life outlook after the past few years, or even mild depression or something. It may even be completely psychosomatic.

I'm considering getting the vaccine just to see if it makes a difference. I'm curious if anyone else is/was in a similar situation.

wetpaws2• 3 years ago

It's unlikely vaccine will help you at this point, although there've been some anecdotal reports of vaccination reducing symptoms of long covid.

raptor5564• 3 years ago

The problem is what even is "long covid"? I've had a doctor tell me it doesn't actually exist, and other people tell me it's to blame for basically everything.

Has the definition been consolidated now that covid is (seemingly) a little less political?

ifyoubuildit2• 3 years ago

You'd probably be better off talking to your doctor and having some bloodwork done. It could be as simple as some kind of deficiency. Throwing a random vaccine at it for something that vaccines aren't meant to do is probably ill advised.

raptor5564• 3 years ago

I've done this, labs seems normal, though I don't think we tested for vitamin deficiencies.

tcoff91• 3 years ago

You should get the vaccine regardless to enhance your immunity in case of a potential re-infection. If it helps you feel better that's just a bonus.

eldritch_4ier3• 3 years ago

Completely feel the same way, except I attribute it to losing my job offer due to lockdowns (pulling the financial rug out from under me for months), being isolated from friends and family members for years, losing all access to outlets other than TV and video games or whatever else I could do inside, and the constant stream of news about how the world was on fire and we're all hopeless to stop it.

It doesn't take a novel virus to see how many people would feel pretty aimless and disillusioned after that.

francisofascii2• 3 years ago

I had had immune system issues since January 2020, where it take forever to feel better. So before the vaccines, which I did get. I am suffering now, as I write this. It comes and goes. I will go months when I am fine but then get sick and take weeks to get better. No mental issues. Not obese, run everyday, etc. If I overdo it with a long run then sometimes it will trigger it. Once its triggered, it takes a week or two feel normal. I can work and get through the day, but not much energy for much else. Feel sick in the morning. Extremely frustrating.

raptor5564• 3 years ago

To be clear, are you saying this is something you think was caused by the vaccine, or something you had before the vaccines? If the latter, what are you suggesting occurred in Jan 2020?

throwaway_86849• 3 years ago

I've been experiencing that, too, but mine started early in 2019 when I got burned out at work. I've been coasting ever since. Some weeks I get zero work done, and I struggle to do the minimum of get out of bed, exercise, and shower some days.

I don't think it's covid, except inasmuch as the isolation of work-from-home has made every day identically boring and unstimulating. The sense of looming doom -- new covid variants, long covid, and the beginning stages of world war 4 -- make it hard to care about doing anything for the long term.

I wish I had a solution. I'm considering taking a long sabbatical. My fear is that won't help, and I'll deplete my savings before the world can get any better, which I think is what I really need to overcome it.

digdugdirk2• 3 years ago

This will be extremely interesting to see play out. Unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a "testable" marker to determine/backup if people are still experiencing Covid symptoms. Insurance companies aren't going to want to play nice for both treatment and disability payouts, but the number of people with the condition is likely too large to sweep under the rug as might normally occur.

I have no idea how things will go, but I'm guessing it'll get ugly before it gets better.

yboris2• 3 years ago

It seems like if our society had UBI (Universal Basic Income) we wouldn't have to worry so much over cases like this - people would be able to get by, it wouldn't be a crisis for so many individuals.

r053bud• 3 years ago

Yup! But here in the USA it's all about profits baby!

ibejoeb6• 3 years ago

What's the control for this, though? We're talking about a conjecture that there is a non-specific, undetectable condition affecting millions of people to the point that they are unable to work. Who pays for UBI if anyone can claim it?

qclibre22• 3 years ago

Everybody wants a government handout. Nobody wants to pay the taxes to fund it.

nostromo5• 3 years ago

Our Covid response really hurt the case for UBI. It turns out, when people are paid to stay at home and not work, even for a short period of time, we get high inflation and product shortages.

fasthands9• 3 years ago

I'm pretty open to UBI but dont really see how that would be the case here.

Let's say someone (who also has an illness like diabetes) has two children and isnt able to work for five years because of long covid. Will the UBI payments be high enough to support them and their children? Or would higher payments be needed to support for them? Would they get a different UBI as a single dude in his 40s?

If so that's fine - but then it just seems like its welfare not UBI.

nradov3• 3 years ago

We have Social Security disability payments available to those who are legitimately unable to work (I do recognize that it can be difficult for some people to navigate the application process). But I am absolutely unwilling to pay higher taxes into a UBI scheme to support people who are capable of working but choose not to.

minsight7• 3 years ago

There are testable markers. Drastically low serum cortisol is one of them.

Zanneth7• 3 years ago

A lot of the symptoms of “Long COVID” are exactly the same as depression and anxiety symptoms. Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like. Of course there are a small number of people who had severe illness from COVID and had to be hospitalized, and the road to recovery for them is quite long, but most people claiming that they suffer from Long COVID are not the ones who were hospitalized.

The fact that there is no diagnostic test that tells you whether you have Long COVID or not leads me to believe that this is yet another hidden manifestation of mental illness. I feel sympathy for people going through this, but it’s wrong to expect the medical industry to come up with any solutions.

minsight7• 3 years ago

Long Covid has a collection of effects on the body which can be observed using commonly-ordered tests. A dramatically reduced serum cortisol is one.

Zanneth7• 3 years ago

Hyperactivity of the amygdala, commonly associated with depression, also causes changes in cortisol levels. [1]

[1] https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.neuropsy...

whatshisface2• 3 years ago

Not a lot of people know this, but depression also has a collection of effects on the body.

https://lorienpsych.com/2021/06/05/depression/

minsight7• 3 years ago

That's not all. We also have "T cell alterations, including exhausted T cells, reduced CD4+ and CD8+ effector memory cell numbers and elevated PD1 expression on central memory cells" which might help narrow it down for the non-believers. I didn't want to post a laundry list, but can post more if necessary.

snozolli• 3 years ago

Brain fog, fatigue, muscle weakness: anyone who has ever had depression knows what this is like.

I've had depression and I've had depressed friends. None of us ever had those symptoms.

Zanneth7• 3 years ago

Were you clinically diagnosed? It is quite common for people suffering from depression to not even be able to get out of bed in the morning.

clint• 3 years ago

I too have had depression and I have also had depressed friends. All of us have had those symptoms.

olyjohn2• 3 years ago

I have had depression for years. And some of the people I know who also have depression have these symptoms. Turns out not everybody reacts the same way to everything!

Invictus0• 3 years ago

I swear there's a dismissive comment like this on every single long covid article on HN

fzeroracer2• 3 years ago

Calling it 'exactly the same' is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I've struggled on and off with depression and the symptoms people report for long covid are not at all like those I or others with depression I've talked to. General fatigue/exhaustion for example doesn't mean I quickly run out of breath when doing normal activities or struggle to do tasks I normally took for granted.

Zanneth7• 3 years ago

Perhaps you and I have had different experiences with depression. For me, basic physical activity is completely exhausting when I am going through a depressive episode.

nradov3• 3 years ago

There are likely multiple completely different underlying root causes which are being conflated together. Some cases may be psychosomatic. But post-viral syndrome has been recognized since at least 1987. It appears that many different viral infections can cause persistent damage to cellular metabolism in a subset of patients, and SARS-CoV-2 is nothing special in that regard. We need more basic research to understand what's really going on.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1710789/

throwntoday2• 3 years ago

I don't see how anyone can deny the risks inherent to getting a shot. However insignificantly low you can demonstrate the possibility of side-effects from the vaccine are, the risks associated with actually getting covid were just as low.

Given the vaccine isn't even preventing covid now, you're only compounding your risk by getting it. This is undeniable no matter what you think about vaccines, mandates, etc.

peterbell_nyc2• 3 years ago

Can't believe we're still having this debate. There are indeed risks to the vaccine. There are also risks to covid (both immediate and longer term). My understanding based on the research is that for the vast majority of the population the sum of the risks of vaccine plus (usually) a milder case of covid are materially lower than the risks of getting covid if you're unvaccinated.

A vaccine doesn't have to stop you getting something to reduce your risk of serious illness, death and possibly long covid.

dEnigma4• 3 years ago

I think the risks of lying in a hospital, strapped to a ventilator were a lot higher with Covid than with getting the shot. To be honest I would recommend the shot even if just to prevent potential month-long loss of smell, as I experienced it (I think that symptom is less prevalent with recent variants though, but I could be mistaken)

tootie3• 3 years ago

"Going back at least as far as the polio vaccine, which was widely released to the public in the 1960s, we’ve never seen a vaccination with long-term side effects, meaning side effects that occur several months or years after injection."

https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/covid-19-vaccine-long-ter...

BryantD• 3 years ago

I generally think that mental illness is on par with physical illness, to the degree that you can differentiate them. If it’s worth our time to worry about one, it’s worth our time to worry about the other.

chitowneats• 3 years ago

We need to correctly diagnose the issue to "worry" constructively about it. Many in the Long COVID community start from the assumption that their symptoms are caused by a totally novel post-viral syndrome, and are very against exploring the idea that this could be a mental health issue.

nerdponx• 3 years ago

That, or, it gives credence to theories that depression can have a physiological component or origin in at least some cases.

It also blurs the line between physical and mental illness. Where do neurological disorders end and mental illnesses begin?

invitrom• 3 years ago

It seems highly unlikely that millions of people get a depression right after an infection with covid.

eldritch_4ier3• 3 years ago

It seems more likely that the significant lockdowns and deep isolation that came with it had these same effects. When you can't see friends for months, can't do anything but stay home and watch tv/play video games, and are constantly exposed to news of a depressing, ill world - what else do you feel?

You don't need covid to feel "Long Covid" after the life we've lived in the last 2 years.

Zanneth7• 3 years ago

A lot of people were severely negatively affected by the world's reaction to the pandemic. Businesses closed, jobs lost, financial insecurity, etc. Surely this could have an impact on the collective mental health.

khazhoux2• 3 years ago

The problem is that it also seems highly unlikely that a respiratory disease that primarily attacks lungs, results in long-term depression.

Whataever physiological connection exists there, is far from obvious. And I haven’t found concrete studies to explain it.

DennisP3• 3 years ago

And even if they did, that doesn't mean covid didn't physically cause it. HIV for example can cause depression by physically damaging the brain.

https://www.health.com/condition/depression/conditions-linke...

vuln2• 3 years ago

I guess if I had to watch family members and friends die via a video chat, or not being able to visit or hold their handle in their last moments? Or you know attend a funeral.

Nope can't see that leading to depression. Everything is fine.

runemadsen4• 3 years ago

This is just so, so wrong in many ways. Read about post-viral diseases such as Me/CFS that closely mirrors what Long Covid sufferers are going through. Watch "Unrest" on Netflix. Stop telling people who have serious physical symptoms that it's all mental. Just stop.

eldritch_4ier3• 3 years ago

Are there any physiological or biological signatures for Long Covid? Is there any objective way to diagnose?

The symptoms of Long Covid are so vague and our recent work so wacky, you could use the same criteria used to diagnose Long Covid to diagnose "Long Lockdowns Syndrome" with all the same vague symptoms.

Zanneth7• 3 years ago

I'm willing to be proven wrong. Up until now, there hasn't been a lot of scientific evidence pointing to a specific physiological cause.

jackmott42• 3 years ago

I bet cases of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome are down while long covid is up.

laxd2• 3 years ago

"Stop telling people who have serious physical symptoms that it's all mental"

As someone who has serious physical symptoms stemming from mental disorder, I think you're being a dick. The experience is the same even if the root cause is mental. And your attitude belittles it.

tootie3• 3 years ago

I think that's a very wrong way of thinking about it. Mental illness is illness and ultimately will always have a physical cause. My more optimistic take is that this will lead to us better understanding how things like pathogens and environmental factors can cause syndromes that manifest as mental illness. Which is to say this could be both depression and long covid and the two could be intertwined. And it may lead us to looking at how influenza or air pollution or cell phone radiation or whatever else is causing depression symptoms.

I say this as someone who was in the same boat for a while. I was suffering persistent fatigue, malaise, anxiety, sleep disruptions. The kind of thing frequently diagnosed as depression. Only I eventually graduated to a specific enough symptom to get a diagnosis of specific physiological cause. A disease that was only positively attributed to specific neurological malfunction 20 years ago and one that is very difficult to test for directly. In reality, I _was_ depressed by the "quacks like a duck" theory of disease. That doesn't mean I didn't have a treatable illness no different than heartburn or cancer. It's only a matter of time (maybe a lot of time) before we really can "cure" most forms of depression.

factsarelolz2• 3 years ago

"BREAKING NEWS: Being locked down for almost 2 years with limited travel and physical interaction causes depression find out about Pfizer's new cure at 11"

lamontcg2• 3 years ago

The fact that there is no diagnostic test that tells you whether you have Long COVID or not leads me to believe that...

...we don't know everything about the human body and immune system and medicine and still have a lot to learn.

throw_away_pri4• 3 years ago

Personal anecdote: I'm going through some mental issues as a result of my divorce and I have trouble staying motivated at work. It's incredibly tempting to claim that I'm suffering from long COVID as an excuse instead of a mental health issue.

I wonder how many people are just using it as a convenient excuse?

wonderwonder• 3 years ago

I thought the same thing after reading the article. I wonder if long term disability would pay out? [I have no intention of finding out]

barbazoo• 3 years ago

Thank you for sharing, I hope you feel better soon.

nostromo5• 3 years ago

The data here is worker's comp claims, so there's a financial incentive at stake.

anonuser123456• 3 years ago

convenient excuse

I think it’s not so overt or intentional. It’s more of a confabulation effect.

throw_away_pri4• 3 years ago

Right, like another commenter suggests, perhaps I do have long covid and I just don't know it. I'm sure there's a confabulation.

switch007• 3 years ago

I'd never claim mental health issues at work, personally.

Sorry to hear about your divorce! Stay strong

throw_away_pri4• 3 years ago

Thank you, I'm getting help, it just takes time to heal.

kritiko• 3 years ago

Given the push for mental health & disability visibility as part of DE&I initiatives, is there a reason that you think long covid would garner you more sympathy than saying you're suffering depression as the result of a traumatic experience?

throw_away_pri4• 3 years ago

I think that push has helped but it's not universal and there's a lot of stigma around mental health issues.

scotty7912• 3 years ago

Are you sure you are not suffering from long covid? Neurological damage can drastically lower mental resilience. Get checked.

isp• 3 years ago

Related: "Long Covid: major findings, mechanisms and recommendations" (207 comments, 12 days ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34375735

minsight7• 3 years ago

Awesome. We know a lot more about Long Covid than many people seem to think. This is a good summary of where we are.

nostromo5• 3 years ago

Covid is a problem for working-age people when there is a comorbidity - usually obesity. It'd be interesting to see additional data about these worker comp claims about other health issues as we've known that America has an obesity problem for some time.

peterbell_nyc2• 3 years ago

My understanding is that while the risk of serious illness and death are strongly correlated with age and comorbidities that we're starting to see a meaningful number of cases of long covid in the working age population and it's not clear to me that it is limited to those who are obese.

joegahona• 3 years ago

https://archive.is/IBzbF

kjkjadksj• 3 years ago

Apparently Long Flu also happens to a certain number of people. I wonder if these people with long covid would have been just as susceptible to getting these symptoms with the flu or other diseases? Maybe there are relevant biomarkers for both?

notacoward2• 3 years ago

I often point out that what people think of as polio is more accurately Long Polio. The acute phase of polio infection wasn't fun, but the paralysis etc. came much later after apparent recovery. This kind of short and long term duality with viral diseases (see also: shingles) has been known for a long time.

lamontcg2• 3 years ago

While Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve wonders where the 3.5 million "missing workers" are in the workforce...

(See also the decline in immigration due to Trump's policies, which Biden has never actually reversed)

riddleronroof• 3 years ago

No no it’s called “quiet quitting”

Long Covid is keeping significant numbers of people out of work, study finds

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