Harvard economist David Cutler puts the cost of long Covid at $3.7 trillion in the US alone. Bloomberg's Jason Gale travels across the US, meeting people affected by long Covid and the experts trying to unravel exactly what causes it and how to treat it.
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These Five Women Are Helping Doctors Crack the Long-Covid Mystery: [ Ссылка ]

Researchers are testing pricey infusions and cheap generics, but warn there’s likely no single solution.

One felt her heart would explode out of her chest, another lost her ability to speak, and three others experienced unrelenting fatigue that left them confined to a bed, a bath or a wheelchair for much of each day.

The youngest is 23, and the oldest is 65. All but one work in health-related fields. Each has a different set of debilitating symptoms, but all have at least one thing in common—an immune system sent haywire by the coronavirus—making them representative of the biggest group of people living with long Covid. As researchers strive to understand the condition, resemblances to other chronic ailments are coming into focus and providing insight into causes and treatments.

It’s been two years since a group of UK doctors and researchers first warned of Covid-19’s long-term effects. Harvard University economist David Cutler puts the total cost of long Covid in the US at $3.7 trillion. That’s equal to more than 80% of government outlays for the pandemic through the end of July. And scientists still don’t know what causes it, how many people it affects or how to prevent and treat it. Their view is clouded by more than 200 symptoms attributed to what the World Health Organization calls “post Covid-19 condition,” many of which could have different causes.

The number of proven therapies is “zero,” says Eric Topol, founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, California. “With so many millions of people impaired, the need for accelerating clinical trials with promising immune-system- modulating or virus-inactivating agents is beyond urgent.”

Not all cases are serious, and many resolve on their own. But with the ranks of sufferers estimated to be at least 140 million worldwide, the need is rising. “We did a remarkable job developing vaccines for Covid in less than a year,” says Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System in Missouri. “We need to approach long Covid with the same urgency, because this will have serious social, economic and perhaps even political ramifications.”

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