17% of COVID-19 patients haven’t returned to work because of aftereffects

The Financial Times reported that a majority of over 100 million people around the world who contracted COVID-19 and recovered but subsequently suffered an aftereffect have not returned to work because of health issues. The newspaper forecasted that an increase in the number of people who did not manage to get back to work because of the COVID-19 aftereffects may cause the labor shortage.

According to The Financial Times, one in every five COVID-19 patients has not got back to work even after five months from discharge from hospital. The joint research team at Leicester College in the U.K. studied 1,170 people who were hospitalized over the course of the period from March to November 2020 because of COVID-19 and stated that 17 percent of them did not get back to work because of the after-effects and 19 percent changed their jobs due to health-related issues. Twenty five percent of the U.K. businesses said that the aftereffects of COVID-19 were the main reason for long-term absence.

The case is similar in the U.S. The Brookings Institution, a U.S.-based think tank, announced that 15 percent of 1,060,000 jobs in demand for employees as of November 2021 was replacement for employees who were absent due to the post-viral illnesses. It means over 1.5 million people have not returned to work because of health concerns.

Experts said that the after-effects of the pandemic may become a leading cause for the worst labor shortage in history. U.S. President Joe Biden urged the National Institutes of Health last Tuesday to embark on a nation-level study on the aftereffects of COVID-19 and protect the rights of the employees experiencing the after-effects.


newsoo@donga.com