Wednesday, October 05, 2022



The Costs of Long COVID

More than 6 million people have died from COVID-19 worldwide, including nearly 1 million in the US.1 But mortality is not the only adverse consequence of COVID-19. Many survivors suffer long-term impairment, officially termed postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection and commonly called long COVID.

Long COVID—typically defined as symptoms lasting more than 30 days after acute COVID infection—has received some public attention, but it is not nearly as intense as it is for acute COVID-19 infection. Support groups are devoted to the condition, and Congress has allocated more than $1 billion to the National Institutes of Health to study it. But the relatively meager attention that has been paid to long COVID is unfortunate because its health and economic consequences are likely to be every bit as substantial as those due to acute illness.

People who have more severe COVID-19 are more likely to experience long COVID, but severe acute disease is not a prerequisite. Long COVID has been found in people with only mild initial illness. The most common symptom of long COVID is fatigue.2 More severe cases involve damage to a variety of organ systems (the lungs, heart, nervous system, kidneys, and liver have all been implicated), along with mental health impairment. Researchers have hypothesized that physiological pathways may involve direct consequences of the viral infection along with inflammatory or autoimmune responses.

Because many prevalence estimates are based on convenience samples of members of COVID-19 support groups or people who had severe acute disease, the population prevalence of long COVID is not entirely known.3 British population data suggest that 22% to 38% of people with the infection will have at least 1 COVID-19 symptom 12 weeks after initial symptom onset, and 12% to 17% will have 3 or more symptoms.2

Rates this high translate to an enormous number of people with long COVID. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as of May 5, 2022, the US has had roughly 81 million cases of COVID-19 and 994 187 COVID deaths. Even the lower-end estimate of 12% of people with 3 or more symptoms of long COVID implies that 9.6 million people in the US may have developed long COVID—roughly 10 times the number of COVID-19 deaths. It is not known how long people with long COVID will be symptomatic, but recovery in the first year of long COVID for affected individuals may be very slow.4

Reduced health is not the only consequence of long COVID. People with the condition work and earn less than they would have otherwise. One survey found that 44% of people with long COVID were out of the labor force and 51% worked fewer hours.5 In the economy as a whole, more than 1 million people may be out of the workforce at any given time because of long COVID.6

This reduction in labor supply is a direct earning loss. If 1 million people are out of the labor force because of long COVID, the lost income would be more than $50 billion annually. People out of the workforce because of long COVID disproportionately worked in service jobs, including health care, social care, and retail.7 The widely noted shortage of workers in these sectors is driving up both wages and prices. Part of the recent surge in inflation in the US may thus be related to long COVID.

People who are no longer able to work may also apply for Social Security Disability Insurance. To date, there has been no sustained increase in disability insurance applications since the onset of COVID-19. This is good news, though it bears watching as disability centers continue reopening from their COVID-19 shutdowns.

Increased medical spending is another consequence of long COVID. The medical costs for treating long COVID have not been estimated, but costs have been estimated for similar conditions. If treatment of long COVID is similar to treatment of myalgic encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome), these estimated costs could be about $9000 per person annually.8

In an October 2020 analysis, we estimated9 the then-nascent COVID-19 pandemic might result in $2.6 trillion of cost as a result of long COVID. Unfortunately, our estimate seems very much on target.

The massive cost of long COVID has several policy implications. Investing in treatments for long COVID is obviously a high priority. According to a recent report from the Rockefeller Foundation, progress to date has been “achingly slow” and that needs to change.10 Experimenting with ways to make employment easier for people with long-term complications is also a high priority. People with chronic fatigue may be better able to work at home or with frequent breaks than they can with a time-delimited office day and a long commute. By speeding up the transition to telework, enhanced employment opportunities for those with long COVID may be possible.

In addition, the economic cost of long COVID reinforces the value of comprehensive actions to prevent and treat new infections. Mask mandates are unpopular in many areas and a substantial share of the public resists being vaccinated—though each action should still be encouraged. But additional progress might also be made through expanding rapid COVID-19 test capability, global surveillance to detect new SARS-CoV-2 variants, and immediate action should any such variants be detected. Such measures have associated costs, but no matter how large these costs are, they pale compared with the potential benefits.

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Newly Obtained Emails Shed More Light on CDC’s False Vaccine Safety Monitoring Statements

Newly obtained emails show the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made a false statement on COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring in 2021, months before agency officials gave false statements on the matter to The Epoch Times.

The emails also show top officials in the agency discussing performing safety monitoring on a key database for myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation that has been linked to the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

The CDC promised in 2021 in a set of operating procedures to perform a type of analysis called Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) on reports of adverse reactions following COVID-19 vaccination. The reports are submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which officials have described as “the nation’s early warning system” for post-vaccination adverse events. The CDC also said in an updated set of operating procedures in 2022 that it would perform the analysis.

But the CDC has made false statements three times this year on PRRs, initially saying such analysis was outside the agency’s purview, then saying the analysis was performed starting in 2021, then saying the analysis did not begin until 2022. The newly obtained emails show that an official falsely said the CDC does not perform PRR analysis to an editor in 2021.

John Gregory, a health editor at NewsGuard, wrote to the CDC on Oct. 19, 2021, asking for a comment regarding a claim that the CDC’s PRR analysis cannot accurately identify when a vaccine causes adverse events, one of the emails shows. Martha Sharan, a CDC spokeswoman, sent the query to Dr. John Su, who leads the CDC’s VAERS team, and Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, who also works on vaccine safety.

Their responses were redacted apart from a comment on NewsGuard. Sharan then wrote that she’d spoken to Gregory.

“I spoke to the reporter and explained that CDC does not do PPR analysis. The reporter is not going to pursue this any further!” she wrote, adding later that she meant PRR.

That contradicts the operating procedures, which state that the CDC “will perform Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) analysis” on VAERS reports.

“We let our published content speak for itself,” Gregory told The Epoch Times in an email when notified that the CDC does actually perform PRRs.

‘That’s a New One to Me’

In June 2022, the CDC falsely told Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit, that PRR analysis is “outside of th[e] agency’s purview.” An Associated Press reporter, Angelo Fichera, flagged a Children’s Health Defense article on the statement to the CDC, asking whether the CDC had ever performed the analysis, according to the newly obtained emails.

Kristen Nordlund, another CDC spokeswoman, forwarded the query to Sharan. “Martha—thoughts on this one?” she asked.

“That’s a new one on me—proportional reporting ratios’—I need to send this one to John,” Sharan responded.

Sharan later sent a statement about PRRs to The Associated Press and the Washington Examiner.

The Associated Press and NewsGuard never published stories on the topic. After The Epoch Times reported on contradictory statements from the CDC, the Examiner published an article about the developments.

Fichera, Sharan, and Su did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

The emails were obtained by The Epoch Times and an independent researcher through FOIA requests.

“The CDC claims to be vigilantly and transparently monitoring the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, but when it comes to Proportional Reporting Ratio (PRR) analysis, the CDC’s broken promises, inconsistent statements, stonewalling, and double standards tell a different story,” Mary Holland, president and general counsel of Children’s Health Defense, told The Epoch Times via email.

“When asked about PRR analysis in connection with COVID vaccines—through FOIA, media, and congressional requests—CDC has made conflicting statements, some of them false. When confronted about the statements, the CDC claimed, essentially, that PRR analysis is not worth doing. And for the few months of PRR the CDC now says it has completed, the CDC has failed to make the results public, despite requests from multiple sources.”

“Children’s Health Defense calls on the CDC to do the right thing: do the analysis, and make the results available,” she added.

Timeline of CDC emails and statements. Some are being reported for the first time in this story

“I spoke to the reporter and explained that CDC does not do PPR analysis. The reporter is not going to pursue this any further!” – Martha Sharan to CDC colleagues, Oct. 19, 2021. (source: FOIA response to independent researcher)
“Correction – that should say PRR.” – Martha Sharan to CDC colleagues, Oct. 19, 2021. (FOIA response to independent researcher)

“[P]rogram staff within the Immunization and Safety Office inform me that no PRRs were conducted by CDC. Furthermore, data mining is outside of th[e] agency’s purview.” – Roger Andoh, June 16, 2022. (letter to Children’s Health Defense)

“That’s a new one on me – proportional reporting ratios’ – I need to send this one to John.” – Martha Sharan to CDC colleagues, June 22, 2022 (FOIA response to The Epoch Times)

“[P]rogram staff within the Immunization and Safety Office inform me that no PRRs were conducted by CDC. Furthermore, data mining is outside of the agency’s purview.” – Bruno Viana to Roger Andoh, June 30, 2022 (FOIA response to The Epoch Times)

“CDC has been performing PRRs since Feb 2021, and continues to do so to date.” – Dr. John Su, July 18, 2022 (statement to The Epoch Times)

“CDC has revisited several FOIA requests and as a result of its review CDC is issuing corrections. … In reference to Proportional Reporting Ratios (PRRs) – CDC performed PRRs from March 25, 2022 through July 31, 2022.” – Martha Sharan, Aug. 8, 2022. (statement to The Epoch Times)

“CDC performed PRR analysis between March 25, 2022, through July 31, 2022. CDC also recently addressed a previous statement made to the Epoch Times to clarify PRR were not run between February 26, 2021, to September 30, 2021.” – Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Sept. 12, 2022 (letter to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.))

A member of the U.S. military receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Camp Foster in Ginowan, Japan, on April 28, 2021. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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