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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Devi Sridhar

Britain has closed its eyes to long Covid – which means it will ravage even more lives and livelihoods

Protest outside the high court in London calling for the government to compensate NHS workers who contracted long Covid while working during the pandemic, 23 October 2024.
Protest outside the high court in London calls for the government to compensate NHS workers who contracted long Covid during the pandemic, 23 October 2024. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Trust me, no one, even in public health or medicine, wants to talk or think about Covid-19. The trauma of those pandemic years is burnt into our minds. But, whether we want to deal with it or not, Covid-19 is still affecting all of us, and circulating at fairly high levels in Britain this month. While community surveys are no longer conducted by the Office for National Statistics to estimate overall cases, hospital data from England indicates that the weekly hospital admission rate for Covid-19 is at 4.64 for every 100,000 people, with the north-east region at 8.91.

These figures just cover people who are admitted to hospital and don’t reflect those suffering at home or attending GP clinics. While we were mainly fixated on death rates during the pandemic, the longer legacy concerns people who had and cleared the infection, but are still suffering – what is usually referred to as long Covid.

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