Long Covid's lingering financial side effects

Politico

a day ago

LONG COVID'S TOLL — More than five years after the Covid-19 pandemic first ravaged the nation, many Americans are still dealing with the social and economic fallout of having contracted the disease.
People with long Covid — those who have new or persistent symptoms lasting three months past infection — have experienced worse financial and employment outcomes, lasting up to three years after their initial infection, compared with people who haven't had the disease, according to a study published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open from researchers at Rush University Medical Center, Yale School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and other research institutions.
Long Covid patients reported worse work impairment, missed work and financial distress compared with those who never had Long Covid, the study found. Vaccination against Covid was associated with improved work and economic outcomes.
Not just physical: 'While much of the focus in Long COVID research has been on the medical impact, we must also consider the sustained financial burden faced by those whose symptoms persist,' lead author Michael Gottlieb, an emergency medicine doctor and vice chair of research at Rush, said in a statement.
Addressing the financial burden of long Covid might 'require policy interventions, such as expanded disability benefits or workplace accommodations to help combat the work and financial impact of this condition,' the authors wrote.
The researchers analyzed self-reported data from more than 3,600 participants in the Innovative Support for Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infections Registry, a CDC-funded initiative aimed at better understanding Covid's long-term effects.
Why it matters: About 6 percent of U.S. adults suffer from some form of long Covid, according to CDC estimates. The National Institutes of Health believes that as many as 23 million people have the illness, which can range in severity from mild to debilitating.
The symptoms, which can include fatigue, headaches and brain fog, can be life-disrupting for many patients. Some treatments, like Paxlovid, have shown promise in reducing symptoms, but being diagnosed and finding suitable treatment can be difficult because of the disease's wide range of symptoms that often overlap with other conditions.
HHS recently shut down its long Covid office, a casualty of the Trump administration's sweeping reorganization of the agency. At the time the closure was announced, an HHS employee who worked on long Covid and who was granted anonymity to share details of the move told POLITICO that abandoning work that could have cured the disease means the country's health care system will have to provide years, if not decades, of costly care for tens of millions of chronically ill people.
In March, the Trump administration also canceled dozens of grants for long Covid projects, but some funding was restored after advocates fought back.
WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY PULSE. I'm still reeling from Taylor Swift announcing her new album. Send your Swiftie theories, scoops and feedback to [e-mail] and [e-mail], and follow along @kelhoops and @sophie_gardnerj.
At the Agencies
LOOMER'S LATEST PREY — After successfully ousting several members of Trump's administration for alleged insufficient loyalty, far-right activist and MAGA influencer Laura Loomer tells our colleagues at Playbook that she has her next target: Stefanie Spear, the principal deputy chief of staff and senior counselor to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The reason why, in part: 'I think that there's a clear intention by Stefanie Spear to utilize her position to try to lay the groundwork for a 2028 RFK presidential run,' Loomer alleges.
Asked for comment by Playbook, a senior HHS official did not deny that Kennedy is weighing a presidential bid.
Read the full story in this morning's Playbook.
CDC LATEST — CDC officials held a tense all-hands meeting Tuesday in the aftermath of last week's shooting at the agency's Atlanta headquarters, Sophie reports with POLITICO's Amanda Friedman and Lauren Gardner.
The meeting came as law enforcement officials revealed early Tuesday additional information about the nature of the shooting: The man who opened fire at the agency on Friday died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was motivated by his distrust of Covid-19 vaccines.
Agency update: At the CDC's all-hands meeting, Director Susan Monarez thanked employees for their work and acknowledged that 'misinformation can be dangerous,' according to a live transcript obtained by POLITICO.
'In moments like this, we must meet the challenges with rational, evidence-based discourse spoken with compassion and understanding,' she said. 'That is how we will lead.'
CDC employees were closely watching Monarez at the meeting to see how she would respond to the shooting and the news that the suspected shooter had expressed distrust of the Covid vaccine. Two CDC employees, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO that Monarez's speech was not what they'd hoped.
'[Twenty minutes] of reading off a teleprompter,' one of the employees said in a text, adding that Monarez's remarks prompted an 'overwhelmingly negative response from folks in my immediate orbit.'
Another agency employee said the meeting was in stark contrast to a separate meeting held for the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases staff on Saturday, where employees could ask Monarez questions.
What's next: HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said that staff would have 'continued opportunities' to voice their perspectives to CDC leadership in the days ahead.
'Friday's shooting was a traumatic event for the agency, and leadership is working to provide continued updates along with resources for healing and recovery,' Nixon said in a statement.
DOGE SAVINGS — The Trump administration has drastically exaggerated how much money it has saved through DOGE-related cuts to federal contracts, including at health agencies, according to an analysis of public data and federal spending records from POLITICO's Jessie Blaeser.
Through July, DOGE said it had saved taxpayers $52.8 billion by canceling contracts, but of the $32.7 billion in actual claimed contract savings that POLITICO could verify, DOGE's savings over that period were closer to $1.4 billion.
Despite the administration's claims, none of that $1.4 billion will lower the federal deficit unless Congress steps in. Instead, the money has been returned to agencies mandated by law to spend it.
The health claims: Under the VA, DOGE's wall of receipts reported savings of $932 million from contracts canceled through June, including awards for a cancer registry, suicide-prevention services and other health care support. Federal records show the VA recovered just $132 million from the awards, or less than 15 percent of what DOGE claimed, and that the VA reinstated the contract for suicide-prevention support.
One of DOGE's largest savings claims is from a canceled contract for a shelter in Pecos, Texas, to house unaccompanied migrant children. In a post on social media platform X in February, DOGE said HHS 'paid ~$18M/month' to keep the now-empty center open. Canceling the agreement, it said, would translate to more than $215 million in annual savings for taxpayers.
By the time the contract was added to the DOGE termination list, that savings claim skyrocketed to $2.9 billion. But HHS and its Office of Refugee Resettlement were not on track to spend anywhere close to the contract's $3.3 billion ceiling.
WHAT WE'RE READING
POLITICO's Tyler Katzenberger reports on a federal judge blocking the Trump administration from using Medicaid beneficiaries' personal data for immigration enforcement purposes.
Bloomberg Law's Celine Castronuovo reports on Texas' attorney general accusing Eli Lilly of unlawfully pushing providers to prescribe its blockbuster obesity drugs and other treatments to receive Medicaid payments.