Covid-19 has caused an incredibly high number of missed days of work due to sick leave. Fortunately, when the pandemic hit, many employers were able to augment and enhance their paid sick leave policies. But what about Long Covid? Has Long Covid increased disability claims?
The data doesn't tell us why people have not sought aid, and it would be presumptuous to conclude that they don't need it. There are myriad reasons why pwLC have not sought assistance, starting with: newly disabled people know little about the system. People with new symptoms might experience a range of things, like hoping it will pass or being too bogged down to have the bandwidth to investigate an overly complicated and dismissive system. I'd like the perspective of disability advocates to help us understand what this data does and doesn't mean.
Another data point suggesting that long covid is not impacting the ability to work among those of working age is that the % of prime working age adults (25-54) is the highest it has been since the late '90s. I am guessing that "extremely long covid" (which is what it would take to file for disability) impacted a very very tiny group of non-seniors.
Only experience I have is that I just submitted a Long Term Disability claim for my wife roughly 4 weeks after she was diagnosed with Peritoneal Carcinomatosis. (If you got an auto-note saying I turned off auto-renewal, that's why - pausing all 40 paid subs).
You would think this diagnosis would be an instant approval (anyone not familiar Cleveland Clinic says "It marks the end of your cancer journey... and if you have just been diagnosed for the first time with Carcinomatosis, it still marks the end of your journey").
Obviously I'm heartbroken for her, our children, her parents and siblings, but trying to compartmentalize. Thankfully her hospital has been great about disability coverage, benefits, etc. so at least she doesn't have to worry about any of that which is a luxury few people would have in this situation.
Social Security said she has to wait no matter what 5 months until first payment. Thankfully we aren't relying on this money, I feel bad for anyone who needs it immediately. This appears to be a fixed wait time, and there is no back pay.
Anyway, enough of that sob story, it wouldn't be a post from me without a controversial take, so I propose the obvious two-fold hypothesis:
1) "Long Covid" may be us realizing that perhaps all of these unexplained long term ailments we couldn't pin origin of all these decades may be lingering viral infections**, it's just this is the first time in history we PCR tested the planet to know who had what and when. Disability claims may be flat because the same number of people who got Long Covid bad enough to seek disability were the same number to seek disability from (unknown to them) post viral syndrome from other ILI.
2) Our expectation of Long Covid being so prevalent is because the same bad data from early surveys keeps getting regurtigated uncritically. The "20-30%" for example comes from a UK Pulse Survey where participants woujld log in daily stating their symptoms. The attrition rate was ridiculous. CDC also had a 40 question survey with a 7% response rate they used to keep citing 20-30%, and I saw both of those repeated as facts in March issue of American Family Physician. It could be that we were overstating long Covid by magnitudes.
** I always like to remind people, especially younger people, that the prevailing wisdom in medicine was that ailments like CFS, Fibromyalgia, etc were psychosomatic diseases in the 90's and early 00's. Jeremy - please weigh in here as I believe you started medical school just as they were taken more seriously, but I would guess you knows/knew you fair share old-school docs who think a lots of this "in their heads"?
Thank you for this. I greatly appreciate you explaining the data and understand we just don’t know yet ( which I am really tired of when it comes to COVID). You and Dr. Osterholm would make a great podcast! Would love to know your thoughts on how we move on. Are we still in danger of serious outcomes if vaccinated and boosted? Thank you again for your work.
The data doesn't tell us why people have not sought aid, and it would be presumptuous to conclude that they don't need it. There are myriad reasons why pwLC have not sought assistance, starting with: newly disabled people know little about the system. People with new symptoms might experience a range of things, like hoping it will pass or being too bogged down to have the bandwidth to investigate an overly complicated and dismissive system. I'd like the perspective of disability advocates to help us understand what this data does and doesn't mean.
Another data point suggesting that long covid is not impacting the ability to work among those of working age is that the % of prime working age adults (25-54) is the highest it has been since the late '90s. I am guessing that "extremely long covid" (which is what it would take to file for disability) impacted a very very tiny group of non-seniors.
Only experience I have is that I just submitted a Long Term Disability claim for my wife roughly 4 weeks after she was diagnosed with Peritoneal Carcinomatosis. (If you got an auto-note saying I turned off auto-renewal, that's why - pausing all 40 paid subs).
You would think this diagnosis would be an instant approval (anyone not familiar Cleveland Clinic says "It marks the end of your cancer journey... and if you have just been diagnosed for the first time with Carcinomatosis, it still marks the end of your journey").
Obviously I'm heartbroken for her, our children, her parents and siblings, but trying to compartmentalize. Thankfully her hospital has been great about disability coverage, benefits, etc. so at least she doesn't have to worry about any of that which is a luxury few people would have in this situation.
Social Security said she has to wait no matter what 5 months until first payment. Thankfully we aren't relying on this money, I feel bad for anyone who needs it immediately. This appears to be a fixed wait time, and there is no back pay.
Anyway, enough of that sob story, it wouldn't be a post from me without a controversial take, so I propose the obvious two-fold hypothesis:
1) "Long Covid" may be us realizing that perhaps all of these unexplained long term ailments we couldn't pin origin of all these decades may be lingering viral infections**, it's just this is the first time in history we PCR tested the planet to know who had what and when. Disability claims may be flat because the same number of people who got Long Covid bad enough to seek disability were the same number to seek disability from (unknown to them) post viral syndrome from other ILI.
2) Our expectation of Long Covid being so prevalent is because the same bad data from early surveys keeps getting regurtigated uncritically. The "20-30%" for example comes from a UK Pulse Survey where participants woujld log in daily stating their symptoms. The attrition rate was ridiculous. CDC also had a 40 question survey with a 7% response rate they used to keep citing 20-30%, and I saw both of those repeated as facts in March issue of American Family Physician. It could be that we were overstating long Covid by magnitudes.
** I always like to remind people, especially younger people, that the prevailing wisdom in medicine was that ailments like CFS, Fibromyalgia, etc were psychosomatic diseases in the 90's and early 00's. Jeremy - please weigh in here as I believe you started medical school just as they were taken more seriously, but I would guess you knows/knew you fair share old-school docs who think a lots of this "in their heads"?
Thank you for this. I greatly appreciate you explaining the data and understand we just don’t know yet ( which I am really tired of when it comes to COVID). You and Dr. Osterholm would make a great podcast! Would love to know your thoughts on how we move on. Are we still in danger of serious outcomes if vaccinated and boosted? Thank you again for your work.
I wrote an article about this last year. At the time, fewer than 30,000 disability applications out of millions made any mention of COVID.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/06/long-covid-chronic-illness-disability/661285/