The cost of flying blind

Just over two years ago, when worries about immediate mass-death from covid had waned, and people started to talk about covid becoming "endemic", I asked various government agencies what work they'd done on the costs of that - and particularly, on the cost of Long Covid. The answer was that they just hadn't done any and were basically asleep at the wheel. And today, we get to learn that it could be costing us $2 billion a year:

Researchers estimate long covid is costing the economy $2 billion a year in lost productivity.

[...]

"The research suggests that long covid is likely costing the Australian economy approximately A$9.6 billion, equivalent to 0.5 percent of Australia's GDP. And that's a conservative estimate."

The economic impact in New Zealand was likely comparable, equating to $2b per year she said.

"While this is an estimate, it's plausible that long covid significantly impacts productivity here."

They're having to use Australian figures because there hasn't been any primary research in NZ, because no-one profits from it. Private industry won't fund it, because there's no money; and the government certainly won't, because all it does is show them that they did a shit job. But all the same, it needs to be said: this is a staggering amount of money. And the lost taxation on it alone would go a long way towards paying for those extra hospitals we need. And we're paying it - or rather, not getting it - because governments put no effort into working out what it would cost, and therefore could not make a "business case" for not paying it. Kindof as if they'd just ignored the ongoing costs of climate change (oh, wait...)

(OTOH, even if they'd done the work, we'd still be up against the bipartisan status quo party consensus opposing either spending money or regulation. Which again, sounds a lot like climate change policy...)

As Marc Daalder said when he took a deeper look at the government's inaction on this:

Long Covid is poised to place significant demand on the welfare and healthcare system through increased demand, on the economy through lost wages and labour shortages and on society through the sudden spike of disability. Responsible agencies would be preparing to manage these impacts, not plunging their heads in the sand and pretending they don't exist.

Sadly, it appears that multiple key government agencies were and are irresponsible. Faced with a significant threat of ongoing costs, they ignored it, ensuring we would pay them for decades. Heckuva job. Really earning those salaries there.