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Speaker 1: New research into long COVID. It could it suggest to

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Speaker 1: be costing US two billion dollars a year in lost productivity.

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Speaker 1: That number doesn't take into account, by the way health costs.

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Speaker 1: University of Auckland health economists Paula Lageli is with us

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Speaker 1: on this. Paula, Good morning, Mornina.

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Speaker 2: Mike, what is.

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Speaker 1: Long COVID and what's the definition? And do we have

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Speaker 1: a definite definition of what it is?

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Speaker 2: There is a WHO definition and there's a definition from

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Speaker 2: a group of scientific academies in the US, and it

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Speaker 2: is these sometimes new but often persistent symptoms of COVID

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Speaker 2: that still exist around twelve twelve weeks, three months after

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Speaker 2: your COVID infection.

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Speaker 1: And is that definitive enough for you as an economist

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Speaker 1: to put a number around it.

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Speaker 2: It's as good as we're going to get, Mike, So

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Speaker 2: I think we need to put a number on it.

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Speaker 2: And so at the moment without a diagnosis, there's no

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Speaker 2: clinical tool to diagnose long COVID. This is what we use.

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Speaker 1: How do you come up with two billion?

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Speaker 2: Well, we used we don't have any information from New Zealand,

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Speaker 2: so we used information from Australia. Australia had a really

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Speaker 2: similar pandemic experience to New Zealand. Obviously we closed our borders,

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Speaker 2: we locked down. Other countries have done similar estimates and

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Speaker 2: the OECD has done an estimate, but that includes countries

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Speaker 2: where they had much bigger numbers of infections in the

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Speaker 2: early waves before we had vaccination. And so we've taken

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Speaker 2: the percentage from Australia from this paper that was published

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Speaker 2: in the Medical Journal of Australia and applied it to

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Speaker 2: New Zealand context. So that's how we come up with

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Speaker 2: two billion per year.

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Speaker 1: I haven't to read that report the other day out

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Speaker 1: of Australia when it made news, and it interested to

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Speaker 1: me to the extent that what is I mean, if

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Speaker 1: you're not well and you can't work, I mean, what

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Speaker 1: are we supposed to do with that?

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Speaker 2: I know, well, we need to support these people, right,

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Speaker 2: we need to make sure that they can get disability support,

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Speaker 2: or we can help manage and manage and treat them

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Speaker 2: providing long COVID support services. And obviously also we want

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Speaker 2: to avoid people more people getting long COVID, so we

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Speaker 2: need to look at prevention as well.

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Speaker 1: I reckon we've gone past that, haven't we. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's COVID in my eye or ear all feel a

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Speaker 1: vibe or whatever has gone into the category of it.

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Speaker 1: It's another thing that you get. It's like the flu.

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Speaker 1: It's like a cold's taking your day off work. Who

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Speaker 1: cares whether it's a cold or COVID or flu? Do

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Speaker 1: you see what I mean? And that's people's mentality.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I mean, And we've all just watched

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Speaker 2: the Olympics, haven't we, And how many Olympians were in

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Speaker 2: the Tour de France. How many cyclists and olympians were

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Speaker 2: at their profession and the peak of their profession, but

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Speaker 2: performing with COVID and we know that they shouldn't be

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Speaker 2: doing that because that actually exacerbates the chances of getting

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Speaker 2: long COVID. Yeah. So if you can take some time

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Speaker 2: off and you can isolate, greats. If you can wear

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Speaker 2: a mask, if you know that you're infectious, great. I mean,

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Speaker 2: let's try and avoid giving it to somebody and therefore

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Speaker 2: listening the chance of giving somebody what may be a

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Speaker 2: lifelong debility excuse me, debilitating illness.

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Speaker 1: All right, Paula, appreciate it very much. Paula la Gilli

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Speaker 1: University of Auckland Health Economists For more from the Mic

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Speaker 1: Asking Breakfast. Listen live to news talks that'd be from

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