Long Covid has already cost the Australian economy three million working days this year, according to a government analysis seen by AFP, significantly worsening the country's acute labour shortages.
The treasury report found that lingering effects of the coronavirus have been keeping some 31,000 Australians away from work every day.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that Australia's "labour market has been absolutely smashed by Covid, and Long Covid increasingly". "The thousands of workdays the economy is losing to Long Covid is just one part of a complex picture, and gives a sense of what we are all up against," he said.
The treasury analysis defined Long Covid as someone experiencing symptoms four weeks or more after becoming infected. This mirrors how Long Covid is characterised by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which lists a wide variety of respiratory, heart, digestive and even neurological symptoms.