Employees with Long Covid or Post Covid are often absent from work for long periods of time. This is shown by the results of a current study by the health insurance company AOK. However, the number of sick people has recently fallen.
According to an evaluation by the AOK, the number of people in Germany suffering from Long Covid fell last year compared to the pandemic years 2021 and 2022. However, those affected are out for a very long time.
More than a third have already had it because of Corona on sick leave
According to the analysis by the AOK’s Scientific Institute (WIdO), in December 2023, for every 100,000 AOK insured people, there were still 110 with a sick note due to Post Covid, Long Covid or chronic fatigue syndrome.
The peak value was 416 employed insured people per 100,000 insured people in March 2022. According to the evaluation, from the beginning of the pandemic up to and including last December, more than a third of all continuously employed people insured with the AOK were on sick leave with a corona infection at least once.
According to the study, those affected are often out of work for a very long time – the average downtime in each case was 36.6 days. It is also noticeable that older employees are more often affected by the long-term consequences. 44 percent of the cases affect the 50 to 59 year old age group – across all other diseases it is only 29.2 percent of the group.
Social professions most affected
According to the study, employees in social and health professions are most affected by long and post Covid. Both acute Covid19 infections and their long-term consequences were diagnosed here most frequently. When it comes to acute illnesses, professions in child care and education were at the top: almost half of the members of this professional group (48.3 percent) were on sick leave at least once between March 2020 and December 2023 due to an acute Covid19 infection.
Since the proportion of women in these professional groups is significantly higher, women are generally more affected than men by the long-term consequences of a corona infection. The proportion of women is 77 percent in physiotherapy and even more than 90 percent in child care and education. “Against this background, it is not surprising that there are clear gender-specific differences in occupational absences during the pandemic,” said WIdO Managing Director Schröder.
Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, a total of 1.8 percent of AOK insured people – that corresponds to a good 126,000 people – have had a sick note due to Long Covid, Post Covid or chronic fatigue syndrome. If only those employees who were on sick leave due to an acute Covid illness are considered, around 3.3 percent were unable to work at least once due to the long-term consequences of a corona illness.
Respiratory diseases overall on the rise
In 2019, before the pandemic, the rate of sick leave due to a respiratory disease was 25.3 percent of employees. In 2023 it had increased to 38.7 of employees. The duration of sick leave per case for respiratory diseases has recently decreased slightly, from 7.1 days of incapacity to work to 6.1.