Long COVID patients in U.S. Oregon endure economic blow: report

NEW YORK, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- More than 200,000 people in the U.S. state of Oregon have likely experienced long COVID-19, causing significant health issues and financial pain, reported Oregon Public Broadcasting on Monday.

Long COVID "has forced millions of people, in Oregon and across the country, to make hard, private choices about how to survive on diminished income," said the report.

Researchers Robert Parker and Benjamin Clark from the University of Oregon found about 7 percent of working-age Oregonians, roughly 185,000 people, had experienced long COVID by spring of this year.

That's cost between 300 million and 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in lost wages as of May, the researchers say, not counting replacement income such as paid sick leave or unemployment benefits.

Nationally, up to 4 million Americans are out of work due to long COVID, according to the report. The estimated cost is about 170 billion dollars in lost wages annually, it added.