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Rising ill-health and economic inactivity from long-term sickness: 2019 to 2023
- hollerith 3y agoNot good, of course, but I was a little worried the decline cause by covid was a lot worse.
- tehjoker 3y agoHard to say how this will evolve with constant re-infections. My guess: not good. Also, persistent immune activation / persistent infection will wear people down for those that get it. Stay tuned for the next few years!
- rjzzleep 3y agoThat is the exact opposite of how the immune system is designed.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoNo. https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/11/07/COVID-Reinfections-And-Immunity/ https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/11/07/COVID-Reinfections-An...
- pigeonhole123 3y agoStrange how the long term sickness was at a low in April 2021 and then rose sharply. I wonder what happened in early 2021 that didn't happen in 2020.
- Conasg 3y agoPossibly the B.1.617.2/Delta variant? I think the timing would match up for that.
- pigeonhole123 3y agoThere are many possibilities I guess. There are other events where the timing also matches up really well. Does the disability curve have another inflection point around the time the Delta wave disappeared?
- rjzzleep 3y agoThis is an opinion piece. > Dr. Anthony Leonardi is a lightning rod for debate. If he’s right, this pandemic poses a greater threat than widely assumed. Almost a year after this article, given what we see in the population, I'd say the results speak for themselves. Unless you're going to tell me that there is a massive coverup happening globally that is hiding the morgue trucks and cooling wagons we saw in the early pandemic.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoI mean it's not preposterous to hold the "soft" conspiracy view here. All cause excess mortality is up like 8-10% compared to pre-covid. There are powerful economic and political incentives to not attribute that to covid, even if it is the cause. And the conclusion he's drawing can't be dismissed after merely one year, we'll see what's up after a decade of infections. We're still very early in this shit actually and caution is warranted confidence is not.
- jacquesm 3y agoIt wasn't designed.
- nradov 3y agoOur immune systems are constantly being activated by some of the hundreds of different endemic respiratory viruses. There's nothing special about SARS-CoV-2 in that regard. It's just one more.
- Earw0rm 3y agoThe trend started before COVID, but it hasn't been normalised for demographics. The average 60 year old is inevitably sicker than the average 20 year old, and there's an increasing proportion of the former in the UK workforce. Not to say there isn't a real problem here - the UK isn't doing a great job either on healthcare or, to my mind even more importantly, preventative medicine and public health, but you need to control variables to get a robust conclusion.
- ggm 3y agoThe coupling to depression is unsurprising. I don't think I know anyone with long term pain (even under management) who isn't battling the black dog. So a trivial take away is that for above 15% increase in self reporting as long-term sick, pre- to post-covid, we've also scored increased needs for mental health treatment alongside debilitating multiple symptom diseases and musculo-skeletal pain. Twice the cost burdens compared to simple illness increase because longterm. This during a time of chronic under-funding of the NHS, backlogged waiting lists, staff leaving in droves, strikes. Makes you laugh, eh?
- gsatic 3y agoThey have gotten good at fixing most things but the brain. That asymmetry is always going to have a high price.
- badcppdev 3y agoStrongly disagree. They are good at fixing a lot of things but my list of things that medicine is not good at treating are auto-immune issues, post-viral conditions and long-term pain from a variety of sources. Edit: Sorry should have included: "and the brain"
- ddorian43 3y agoIt's getting better. See "metabolic psychiatry" as an example.
- thefurdrake 3y agoTell that to the two herniated discs in my spine :( No good long term prognosis, they can't be replaced and the only things to be done only postpone further problems (steroid injections) or cause critical ones later down the line (disc fusion).
- noir_lord 3y ago> The coupling to depression is unsurprising. I don't think I know anyone with long term pain (even under management) who isn't battling the black dog. I have Crohn's and Syringomyelia (won that lottery eh) and yeah, that fucking black dog is always sat at the end of the drive watching.
- benbojangles 3y agoeconomy is crashing and not enough jobs so everyone has gone on sick benefits. It's arguably better to have a bit less income per week but have all your own time to prioritise your life/health balance than it is to be a gig economy worker with low pay and high workload. Simples.
- ajmurmann 3y agoWhich metrics are you basing the assertion on that the economy is crashing? Edit: rereading your comment it seems that you have concerns about unemployment. It seems that in both UK and US we are looking at record-low unemployment numbers. At least in the US, I know that finding workers is a real challenge right now and many businesses are only open limited hours because they cannot find staff.
- Broken_Hippo 3y agoI know that finding workers is a real challenge right now and many businesses are only open limited hours because they cannot find staff. Your comment sounds eerily similar to the false "no one wants to work any more". It isn't like they are generally offering enough pay to cover basic things nor are they willing to actually treat people better to fill those jobs. Not to mention that there are fake job ads out there - companies put ads out, but aren't hiring. Example article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-plum-job-listing-may-just-be-a-ghost-3aafc794 https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-plum-job-listing-may-just-...
- ajmurmann 3y agoAgain, US has the lowest unemployment since the 70s. I'm not doubting anyone's motivation to work. I'm wondering about the claim about a crashing economy and high unemployment.
- invitrom 3y agoI‘ve been unable to work for 2.5 years now because of Long Covid. It sucks and research into the condition is slow and lacks funding.
- Taurenking 3y ago[dead]
- renewiltord 3y agoMy friend's girlfriend got into a study in Boston. I think others might still be recruiting.
- thumbuddy 3y agoLemme put it this way. It highly resembles fibromyalgia. Most doctors in America won't recognize fibromyalgia because in a lot of cases there is no treatment and there is no way in hell industry is going to adapt to having sick people in it, nor is disability going to recognize it. Even if they did recognize it the US disability system is a lot closer to eugenics then it is a social service. Stay safe out there. We have to work together to help each other out on this one and related matters.
- jstarfish 3y ago> nor is disability going to recognize it You can still get it by taking any resultant symptom and exaggerating the hell out of it. Most of those qualify on their own right if bad enough. I know someone who claims to have Crohn's and fibro and collects disability, but his credibility is extremely suspect.
- thumbuddy 3y agoIt's a pretty dumb life move to collect disability if you don't need it. I mean, you are condemning yourself to poverty and being one bad thing away from death. Crohns is diagnosed via a biopsy iirc, it's not a diagnosis of exclusion like IBS is. Crohns is also horrific. so I wonder if you just view your friends poor health as a typical "no one wants to work anymore" way like most people do with disabled people. Fibromyalgia is somewhat a diagnosis of exclusion, but decent doctors can mostly figure it out these days. The hard thing is discerning whether it's ME CFS or not.
- LiamMcCalloway 3y agoWhen reading these stats, two useful things to do: - ask yourself how people in similar situations would be categorized in other countries - whether there are benefits to self selecting as economically disabled in the UK
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoCurious what benefits you think there might be. Economic disability is hardly generously rewarded in the UK.
- LiamMcCalloway 3y agoBut the typical choice is between disability and unemployment benefits, not disability and work. How do they compare ? The UK has an order of magnitude more people it considers disable than neighboring France, last I checked (15years ago).
- zik 3y agoThis implies that around 1.3% of the UK working population are out of action due to covid, and a lot more than that must be struggling but still able to work.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoThe collective reality denial around Covid is by far the most bizarre and dystopian thing I've ever seen. Not just because it's objectively ridiculous to minimise an illness which has a 10% chance of doing lasting damage with unknown long-term consequences. But because so much of it is coming from doctors and health workers. And it's active, aggressive, hostile, reality denial, which attacks simple and effective common sense measures like public/medical masking, air filtration, and so on.
- jl6 3y agoReality is that only severe measures like lockdowns are effective at containing the spread of respiratory illnesses (and even then it’s debatable how effective), and most people have accepted the risks so they don’t have to go through that again.
- bugglebeetle 3y agoNah, widespread air filtration would cut down a number of infections, as would masking in healthcare settings. But to the parent’s point, these are not implemented because of lack of efficacy, but because they’re contrary to the (false) narrative of “Mission Accomplished.” If we reacted to water-borne illnesses in the way we’ve done to COVID, we’d have cholera everywhere and kids still being crippled by polio.
- lll-o-lll 3y agoYes. I do not understand why we were apparently willing to create huge, lasting, economic and societal damage via lockdowns, but my kids school won’t pony up the few thousand for air filtration.
- walthamstow 3y ago> An important contribution to long-term sickness volumes has come from the large number of "baby boomers" (those born between 1946 and 1964) approaching retirement. Anecdata from my parents peer group (born early 60s, working class) indicate that at least some of these people are faking it for a soft landing into retirement. They had a taste of retirement with furlough and they simply don't want to work any more. They don't need to, either, because asset inflation (including property inflation in suburban London) has subsidised their lifestyle for years and will continue to subsidise their retirement.
- jl6 3y ago> They had a taste of retirement with furlough and they simply don't want to work any more. They don't need to, either, because property inflation in suburban London has subsidised their lifestyle for years. I know quite a number of people doing exactly this for exactly this reason, but they are quite open about it and aren’t faking anything.
- butler14 3y ago>I know quite a number of people doing exactly this for exactly this reason, but they are quite open about it and aren’t faking anything. Same, I can think of several people I know that fit this category -- they've built enough wealth and WFH/furlough gave them a taste for what they were missing by not having retired early -- so they retired early I just hope they actually spend some of that wealth rather than keeping it sat in savings account I also hope they look at young people today and recognise the economic difficulties many are facing: getting on the house ladder, getting stable employment, getting above inflation pay rises
- wcerfgba 3y ago> An important contribution to long-term sickness volumes has come from the large number of "baby boomers" (those born between 1946 and 1964) approaching retirement. The lack of age breakdown in these statistics is disappointing, its not clear how much of these trends can be attributed to an ageing population.
- Leherenn 3y agoInterestingly enough in Switzerland, the 15-24 age category just became the age group with the highest number of sick days per year, when it used to be the oldest age group before the pandemic. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/record-level-of-sick-days-logged-in-switzerland-in-2022/48715380 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/record-level-of-sick-da...
- Glawen 3y ago"The SonntagsZeitung also writes that younger people are significantly more likely to call in sick due to mental illness" I understand, I also get mentally challenged when I cross Switzerland, especially in front of the Gothard tunnel.
- stuartbman 3y agoUnsurprising. There's a poor economic argument for funding healthcare in the UK, other than it being used as a political football to win votes. The result is decades of underfunding and then massive tranches of funding to make headlines which has to be spent immediately and therefore gets squandered on "transformation initiatives" without a focus on health outcomes. The public are being told that the UK can't afford to pay healthcare staff market rates, and so they are all leaving the NHS. The result is this dip in GDP, which IMO is more expensive.
- krona 3y agoReal terms funding has increased every year since 2010. It's projected to fall back slightly post-covid but its still almost 20% higher than 2019. https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/funding/health-funding-data-analysis https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-w...
- chx 3y agoBy and large, by now, mask mandates were dropped everywhere. There never was a reason to do this. Aside from politics, of course. This, as this study shows has massive costs in the quality of life for many and affects the economy but no. We can't have mask mandates. I am now wearing a Cleanspace Halo when on public transit or indoors. If y'all can't be bothered to keep the air clean I will make my own. fine But what of the many who can't afford one or find it ridiculous to wear one? Because it is ridiculous to basically constantly cosplay as Darth Vader (badly), no question about that. But what can one do?
- AlecSchueler 3y agoAgree about the effects on health and the economy, but I think there's more to consider than that. The health stuff isn't even so clear cut. Consider the psychological and social effects of mandating that people cover their faces. It's very valuable to be able to connect on the human level and to do so with a sense of freedom.
- chx 3y agoo_O People should become disabled and some even die just so you can see the other person's mug on the bus? Is this what you are saying?
- wholinator2 3y agoWhat about every single other risk we accept as humans alive on earth. This is just a kinda new one, why do you draw the line specifically at the airborne virus?
- chx 3y agoBecause this one is novel, we do not yet know how to cure the severe disability it causes and the disease is currently very widespread. And we have a really simple way to severely restricts its spread: wear an N95/FFP2 mask. That simple?
- LatteLazy 3y agoThe proportion of working people has been falling for decades. We have taken a deeply moralistic and political approach to this fact of life: people are arbitrarily divided into the deserving and undeserving. Meanwhile the remaining workers are worked harder and longer than ever before and taxed more heavily (leading to everything from depression to physical illnesses to poverty to low social mobility). It's time to get real on this and move to things like UBI that eliminate the need to "pick losers".
- vladvasiliu 3y agoI also think that UBI would be generally a good thing, at least because it would help trim down the size of the bureaucracy administering the benefits. But if it's a given that the proportion of working people is going down, it's not clear to me why UBI would be any help with "the remaining workers being worked harder and longer than ever before and taxed more heavily". UBI has to come from somewhere. And by removing the "moralistic approach", it's likely that some people who work tough jobs making a pittance would probably just stop.
- LatteLazy 3y agoThere are a few reasons. Firstly people getting a pittance now for job X would also get ubi, so they'd be better off. And second, when that crappy job ceases to exist, they'd have something to fall back on (the UK where I am has basically no benefits for people who lose their jobs). If they quit, I am content for the free market to increase wages or otherwise make those jobs better. Separately if like to see shorter working hours (and so more people working). But that's not a ubi change.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago> There are a few reasons. Firstly people getting a pittance now for job X would also get ubi, so they'd be better off. Sure, but the value proposition of the shitty job would be lower, which would help decide in favor of stopping it altogether. But this doesn't show how those still working would be under any less pressure, and especially less taxation. The only way this could be improved I can imagine is by n-order effects. Some of the people who stop working would pick up some other activity that they enjoy, which would, directly or indirectly, produce some kind of riches, at least for them, at best that could be spread around society. But I don't think this can be reliably approximated beforehand.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- shortrounddev2 3y agoI can't speak to the UK, but in the US a lot of people claim to have long term health to access to disability benefits when the jobs disappear from their towns. The most common disabilities are ones which are the most difficult to disprove (depression, back pain). In Appalachian towns where this is more common, law practices make tons of money representing disability claims in court, getting paid by a % of the disability claim each month if they win
- giraffe_lady 3y agoAre you implying those cases aren't valid health issues? It's more like people will work with chronic pain if they can, but if there's no work they'll sign up for the disability. Depression is also deeply unsurprising in the situation you're describing.
- shortrounddev2 3y agoI'm sure some of them are, but there's a strong financial incentive to develop health problems in towns where there are no jobs.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoThere's a strong financial incentive to do all kinds of crimes. That doesn't make it reasonable to go around accusing large swathes of people based solely on their demographics.
- nradov 3y agoThere are clearly many people who are physically capable of doing some sort of work despite their medical conditions, but have found a sympathetic doctor who declared them to be fully disabled. In most cases this probably doesn't meet the definition of criminal fraud but it's certainly not what the program was intended for. https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
- shortrounddev2 3y ago