SOURCE ITEMS
They think that the virus may bind to receptors on endothelial cells, which are found on the inside of blood vessels, like veins and arteries. It’s possible that the virus’s presence there triggers an immune reaction to the foreign substance which results in clotting, Morro says—and it’s those clots which, if they travel to the brain, can cause stroke.
Kat Eschner, COVID-19 is causing strokes in young people and doctors don’t know why, Popular Science, April 28, 2020.
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But experts are warning of possible long-term effects for patients after they’ve survived the coronavirus. Doctors know now that the disease attacks many systems within the body — from the lungs and heart to the liver and kidneys, says Yale cardiologist Dr. Harlan Krumholz.
Robin Young and Samantha Raphelson, As Patients Recover From Coronavirus, Doctors Wonder About Long-Term Health Impacts, Here and Now, April 28, 2020
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Overall, 1419 of 1555 patients survived for >90 days, with a mean follow-up period of 5.9 years. There was significantly higher long-term mortality among patients with pneumonia than among age-matched controls.
Eric M. Mortensen, Wishwa N. Kapoor, Chung-Chou H. Chang, and Michael J. Fine, Assessment of Mortality after Long-Term Follow-Up of Patients with Community-Acquired Pneumonia, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 37, Issue 12, December 15, 2003.
COMMENTS
We are all trying to figure out what policy makers should decide about revving up the world economy. From what I am reading, even the medical experts are not sure what can be resumed safely and what can’t. As we reopen businesses, the people we are putting at greatest risk are the very people we rely on most to make the world economy hum with success.
One thing we are learning is that young and healthy workers may not be as safe from covid19 as we and they think. Research is suggesting that while young people may face a much lower death rate, they may be facing long-term bad outcomes from covid19, including strokes leading to long term disability and greater susceptibility to debilitation and death from other disease traumas. Long after the covid19 infection is a distant memory, working people and the world economy may still be paying the price of increasing worker exposure to covid19 too soon.
The long run costs in health and wealth from revving the economy too quickly may considerably outweigh the short run gains. For workers who survive covid19 infection, the possible lifelong health conditions will be physically painful and emotionally traumatic. For their families, the expenses and the lost income because of lost work time will undermine economic well being.
The long run costs to the world economy will also be high. A world economy with a large number of health compromised workers is a world economy with rising expenses (on top of the rising expenses of caring for a growing global population of older people, many with chronic illnesses)and declining productivity. Caring for chronically health compromised workers diverts public wealth (both taxes and contributions to charities) away from funding critical investments and funding public goods that enhance the quality of life. Workers with compromised health are off work more often and are less productive when on the job.
In a nation like the U.S., with an aging population and dependence on the output of workers in other parts of the world, the consequences will not be good. Not only our own workforce will be health compromised, but also the global workforce that we have come to rely on. The productivity of workers in the poorer nations that produce so much of what we consume will have very high rates of covid19 infections now and much lower productivity going forward. Moreover, replenishing the U.S. workforce with healthy young workers from other parts of the world as our workers age out of the workforce will be more difficult and costly. In such future circumstances the likely economic trajectory for the U.S. is a downward spiral – less wealth to pay for health; less health to create wealth.
IWE WORK FUTURES 