Salvatore Mattera Profile picture
Feb 19, 2024 26 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Someone asked me, "if many people are gradually developing long COVID, wouldn't we see it in the economic data?" Yes, we would. And in fact we are. A few recent examples:
In the UK, the number of people with long-term sickness has been rising. Because of this, there are now fewer people working in the UK than before the pandemic began. Image
Something similar is happening in Germany. Workers are now taking so many sick days that it's pushed the country's economy into recession. Image
But what about the US? The economy is growing, and the number of jobs now exceeds pre-pandemic levels. We've been more aggressive with booster shots, so maybe that's a factor. But what's likely bigger is immigration: we've simply taken to importing healthy people
In the last few years, virtually all population growth in the US has come through immigration Image
The same is true for employment growth. The country as a whole now has more jobs than before COVID, but there are actually fewer US-born workers than there were in 2019. Image
I've written before about the research showing that people who work in public-facing jobs are more likely to develop long COVID (likely due to more frequent infections)
Because of this, you would expect certain jobs to be especially difficult to fill - a lot of people who were once qualified to fill them have gotten sick. And the people you bring in to replace the sick people will eventually get sick, too.
And this is what we see, with things like teacher shortages remaining persistent. Image
If you go back and study the history of the Black Death, you'll find that inflation surged rapidly and remained high for decades. The plague killed too many people, and those who survived demanded much higher wages, pushing inflation up. Image
We're living through something similar, on a lesser scale. Inflation has surged over the last few years and has remained stubbornly high despite the Fed's attempts to fight it. Image
Looking ahead, some predictions I'll make so long as COVID continues to spread and disable people: the number of long-term sick/disabled people will continue to climb in countries that reliably maintain such statistics.
Inflation will remain elevated.
Countries that cannot easily import healthy people through immigration will struggle economically.
Countries that can import healthy people (e.g. the US) will do better, but will face a lot of internal division over the rapidly rising number of immigrants.
The premium paid to college-educated workers will almost vanish, to where having an average college degree will confer virtually no additional earnings. Consequently, college enrollment will plunge and schools will shutter.
If these things are happening, then it is evidence of a population increasingly sickened by the long-term effects of multiple COVID infections. If they are not, then perhaps COVID is no longer a problem.
The idea that we had to drop COVID precautions to save the economy was always completely nonsensical. Since no one has a good understanding of what long COVID is, who does or doesn't get it, what the long-term prognosis is for long COVID patients,
dropping COVID precautions and infecting the world on a massive scale repeatedly may ultimately prove to be far more financial devastating then even the most severe lock downs of 2020.
Imagine if say, a third of the world were to eventually develop a moderate or severe form of ME/CFS - how exactly would we deal with that? Could we deal with that? I'm not sure that will happen, it may be unlikely, but the data suggests that it is entirely possible.
It was never about saving the economy, or capitalism, or any similar trope. It was just about putting short-term thinking at the expense of long-term success.
A few people have asked if I'm saying immigrants are somehow immune from long COVID. No, I'm not. Rather, most people have not (yet) developed symptomatic long COVID. The population of immigrants are pulled from this group of (seemingly) healthy people.
Eventually, this group may not exist. But it does for now.
@kary_cee Develop long COVID, but at a slower pace (remote, hybrid, or even full office workers will all have less COVID exposure over time). Fewer of them will become disabled and drop out, so their wages will not need to rise as quickly.
@kary_cee This variance will eventually make non-college educated work pay at or near par with college educated work. If you're coming into the workforce, and can make the same or even more money without a degree, would you still get one?
Another data point: if people on the verge of retirement develop long COVID, they may stop working earlier than planned. They wouldn't necessarily show up on disability, as their retirement would be voluntary. That may be happening as more people are now retiring than expected: Image

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More from @SalvMattera

Dec 13, 2024
There are two camps within the long COVID patient community, and I've never really identified with either:
The first is convinced that long COVID is the same thing as ME/CFS. They typically point to a particular meta analysis that shows somewhere around 45% of people with long COVID meet the diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC95…
But other studies, including a new one from Japan, put the percentage much lower. But even if we assume it is 45%, that's still not 100% -- what about the other 55% of people that don't have ME/CFS?
Read 10 tweets
Dec 7, 2024
1 in 5 Americans have had lingering symptoms from a COVID infection. Many people recover naturally after a few months, but others are sick for years. If this happens to you, don't expect to get any form of treatment from your doctor. Instead, you'll have to experiment yourself:
Since there are no approved treatments, the way doctors approach it varies wildly. The most conservative doctors (likely the majority) will give you nothing at all, instead letting you suffer in pain and try to accept whatever is left of your life.
If this happens to you, and if you time, money, and insurance, you can doctor shop, going from one doctor to the next until you get some form of treatment. Eventually, you might run into someone who is willing to prescribe some things.
Read 17 tweets
Dec 3, 2024
~1 in 5 Americans have had lingering symptoms following COVID. Often, they're mild and resolves quickly. Sometimes they are severe and last years, which is what happened to me. Unfortunately, if this happens to you, you are screwed. This is what it's like trying to get care:
I'll start by saying that I have a lot of advantages 95%+ of people do not have, and despite these advantages, my experience seeking care has been terrible.
I live within driving distance of some of the world's best hospital systems. I have enough disposable income that I can afford to spend (and have spent) tens of thousands of dollars on treatments. I have one of the best, if not the best, health insurance plans you could have.
Read 25 tweets
Dec 1, 2024
I think my most controversial take on COVID, and what I think nearly everyone in is getting wrong about this, is that it's a disease whose burden falls primarily on the young. Not the old.
Conventional wisdom is that COVID is only something old people need to worry about. You see this in revisionist arguments over whether it was wise to close schools, or who should get vaccine booster shots. Or if young people needed to get vaccinated at all in the first place.
Underlying all of this is a very simplistic, and very naive view of the data. People are focusing only a single metric: deaths. And to be sure, deaths from COVID are overwhelmingly concentrated among people 65+: Image
Read 18 tweets
Nov 17, 2024
When people talk about the devastation from COVID, they usually cite the number of people who died (7 million, 20 million, 30 million) or the economic cost ($14 trillion, $35 trillion, etc) but this pales in comparison to the true cost, something most people do not understand or talk about:
About 1 in 4 American adults have developed some type of long term health issues from their COVID infections. Data is limited, but it seems reasonable to assume this ratio is similar in other countries. Image
It was once widely believed that children weren't nearly as affected, but recent research has shown that's sadly not the case, with a similar share of kids and teenagers having long lasting health problems from their COVID infections Image
Read 15 tweets
Nov 15, 2024
If you're someone who thought COVID was over and the vaccine saved the day, then the appointment of RFK Jr might come as a surprise or a shock to you. But it's what I expected - I've said for a long time I've assumed the COVID vaccines will eventually be banned in some areas.
This is because COVID is not over. It's given about a quarter of the population a new chronic health condition, and with every reinfection, it gets a little worse. People know their own bodies, and understand that their health is in decline.
But most of them don't know why. Largely because the government and the media has sold a story that COVID is over - that as long as you're vaccinated, you have nothing to worry about. To sell this lie, they have created an increasingly complex web of propaganda
Read 7 tweets

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