OECD says rich countries face 20 more years of Covid costs

The health and economic impacts of Covid-19 will continue to burden the world's wealthiest nations for another 20 years, the OECD warned in a major report released Tuesday, adding that there is roughly a one-in-two chance of another pandemic of similar scale within the next 25 years.politico+1

The 360-page report, titled "The Economic Case for Pandemic Preparedness and Response," examines the consequences of future pandemics across 51 OECD, EU/EEA and G20 countries using epidemiological and economic modeling. It makes the case that investing in preparedness before the next pandemic strikes would be far cheaper than bearing the costs of an unprepared response.oecd+2

The Long Shadow of the Pandemic

The report arrives as governments continue to grapple with pandemic-era debts and long-term health costs more than six years after Covid-19 first emerged. An earlier OECD study published in April estimated that long Covid alone could cost member countries up to $135 billion annually over the next decade, driven mainly by reduced workforce participation and productivity losses rather than direct healthcare spending. That analysis projected GDP losses of between 0.1 and 0.2 percent across OECD countries under scenarios of continued low-to-moderate coronavirus transmission.bloomberg+1

Long Covid — defined as symptoms persisting at least three months after infection — has been estimated to affect 18 million adults in the United States alone. The April report described persistent post-infection symptoms as "not only a health challenge but also a structural brake on economic output".irishtimes

Pandemic Debts Still Coming Due

The fiscal hangover extends beyond healthcare. In Canada, a report released Tuesday by the Maytree Foundation found that efforts to recover roughly $10 billion in pandemic benefits from ineligible recipients are disproportionately hitting low-income Canadians. Ottawa distributed approximately $14 billion in Covid-related benefits to individuals who did not meet eligibility requirements, mostly through the Canada Emergency Response Benefit program.cbc

"This is not a story about fraud," the Maytree report states. "It is a story about what happens when a government moves fast, makes mistakes and then hands the bill to the people least able to pay it".cbc

Preparing for Next Time

The OECD timed the release to coincide with a broader push for pandemic preparedness financing ahead of a United Nations High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response. The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board warned earlier this year that infectious disease outbreaks are becoming more frequent and more damaging, with "widening health, economic, political and social impacts, and less capacity to recover from them".gpmb+1

Spending on prevention measures reached only 5 percent of total health spending even at the peak of the Covid-19 response, up from about 3 percent beforehand, according to OECD data.oecd