A new Yale study finds that the effects of long COVID have caused many Americans to miss extensive work time, and that 14% of study participants reported not returning to work in the months after their infection. The findings, recently in , suggest that long COVID may have affected millions of Americans and generated steep economic costs, highlighting the need for policies to support those with the condition, researchers said. The study drew on a long-term survey of individuals who contracted COVID-19—dubbed Innovative Support for Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infections Registry, or INSPIRE—that began recruiting participants in the fall of 2020 and continued through summer 2022.
More than 6,000 participants—at eight study sites in Illinois, Connecticut, Washington, Pennsylvania, Texas, and California—received surveys upon recruitment and every three months thereafter for 18 months. The Yale researchers focused specifically on participant responses to questions pertaining to work—including whether they returned to work after contracting COVID-19 and how many workdays they missed due to COVID-19-related symptoms. They also assessed how many symptoms participants experienced after having COVID-19.
Among the nearly 3,000 participants who were employed prior to the pandemic, almost 10% reported having five or more symptoms three months after having contracted COVID-19. "And this number was important because we've shown in previous studies that the number of symptoms someone .