A Harvard economist modeled this and concluded long Covid will cost us $3.7 trillion. Since he’s from Harvard, you know he’s an expert…
His model assumed that between 1 in 8 to 1 in 6 (12-17%) of “Covid survivors” would have symptoms on par with ME/CFS and take 5 or more years to recover. Since nearly everyone in the U.S. has now had Covid at least once, his model assumed about 1 in 8 to 1 in 6 people in the United States have long Covid.
“Long Covid”, for most, is one or more symptoms lasting past the main period of illness. For most, it takes the form of fatigue.
For example, I had long hepatitis (but no one called it that) and continued to experience fatigue at 2 to 3 months.
When I had a Staph A infection, influenza and pneumonia all at the same time, I was very sick for 3 weeks, and it took months to fully recover. I guess I had “long Staph/flu/pneumonia”.
For the Harvard “study”, the author assumed that those with Long Covid would have symptoms on par with ME/CFS lasting 5 years, and that 1 in 8 who had Covid, would have long Covid. Today, that would be roughly 1/8th of the U.S. population. Clearly, that did not happen.
Long Covid is a reality, but only a small percent have long lasting symptoms. ME/CFS is a very serious illness that can take a long time to recover. The CDC suggests that about 0.3 to 1% of the population has been impacted by ME/CFS, but that about 90% of those have not been diagnosed. The causes are not certain; some instances may come after some infections.
Yet another expert model forecast for the future was wrong. As most all of them are.
