Long Covid keeping kiwis out of work

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-06-07 00:01

New Zealand

Image by Annie Spratt via UnSplash

Long Covid impacts people's ability to work and causes significant financial strain, particularly for Māori, according to new research in the New Zealand Medical Journal. Of 217 people with Long Covid, 42% could not work at all during the first month of being ill, 30% had to cut down their hours and 17% reported working the same amount of time, but felt it was harder and/or they got less done. A third of respondents said their income reduced as a result of Covid-19, and 20% said they struggled to cover basic living costs.

Media release

From: Pasifika Medical Association Group

We analysed survey data from 990 people who had COVID-19 prior to December 2021. At the very least, 2.5% had long COVID, i.e., symptoms that lasted longer than 3 months. People with long COVID were less able to work, and less able to work the same number of hours or as productively as prior to having COVID-19. Long COVID is likely to continue to be a burden to individuals, families/whānau and employers. Supportive return to work policies are likely to help people with
long COVID to work within their abilities.

Journal/
conference: New Zealand Medical Journal

Organisation/s: Victoria University of Wellington

Funder: The work was funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Health (2021), who had no role in the design, analysis or reporting of this work.

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