Australians face months-long wait for Long COVID treatment, cases expected to grow

Currently, Long COVID is estimated to affect about five per cent of people who contract COVID-19, according to a University of NSW study.

On current daily rates, that translates to 1300 new Long COVID cases each day, cardiologist and Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute Professor Jason Kovacic said.

"The projections are quite sobering," Professor Kovacic said.

"That's happening day-on-day, and it's possible that as people get exposed to second and third re-infections that 5 per cent might rise," he said.

Wait times for Long COVID clinics are substantial, and there are currently only a handful of dedicated clinics across the country, Professor Kovacic said.

While staff are doing an "incredible" job, wait times were spiralling in the face of increasing demand.

At St Vincent's Hospital's Long COVID clinic in Sydney, the wait time for a new respiratory patient is three to four months, and for a new rehabilitation patient, it's four to five months.

"That speaks to the volume of people trying to get in," Professor Kovacic said.

Staff at these clinics are being hit hard by staff shortages, COVID isolation periods and issues affecting much of the Australian workforce, he said, and we must see more clinics established to meet demand.

While most people with long COVID are treated by their GP, a Canberra Health Services spokesperson said there were a small number that needed more serious treatment.

In the ACT clinic, the typical wait time is four weeks, depending on the patient's symptoms, and patients needed a referral to access the clinic, the spokesperson said.

Long COVID is already impacting the Australian workforce, as its symptoms often make work difficult, Professor Kovacic said, and the impact was likely to get worse as cases grow.

"It has a real ripple effect across the community," he said.

Long COVID was a major concern for Australians last month, and many took to social media to share their experiences, according to analysis from July.

Long COVID and COVID-related deaths were strong themes in Twitter and Reddit posts relating to COVID-19, data from the Burnet Institute and the University of Melbourne revealed.

Burnet Institute Professor Robert Power tracked COVID through social media posts on Twitter and Reddit through his 'TIGER C19' analysis.

He found Long COVID experiences, stigmatisation, and concern that the risk of long COVID increases with reinfection were among the most popular topics in pandemic-related social media posts last month.

Professor Power and his team have been running the analysis at regular intervals since March 2021, choosing a handful of key words to analyse the conversation around COVID on social media in Victoria.

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When Professor Power delved into the threads, he found many people had shared how Long COVID was impacting their daily lives.

"What we'd often have is narratives from people - a lot around experiences with Long COVID," he said.

"That came through very strongly- a combination of peoples' experiences, fatigue and brain fog, and their fears for what it might mean in the future," he said.

Users shared stories of feeling stigmatised and experiencing doubt, and even losing their jobs because they were unable to work, he said.

Some of the most popular posts from the July analysis also featured discussion of COVID-related deaths, including how Australian death rates compared internationally, he said.