Long COVID could cost up to €115.3bn per year over the next decade, study shows

EuroNews · 🇫🇷 public France · Apr 13, 2026 · 610 words · By Inês Trindade Pereira

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What to know about Long COVID could cost up to €115.3bn per year over the next decade, study shows

The article discusses the long-term economic and health impacts of long COVID across OECD and EU countries, citing a report on GDP losses and healthcare costs. It highlights the disruption to the workforce and compares the economic burden of the condition to other chronic illnesses like stroke and multiple sclerosis.

Propaganda risk 10%

Claims checked 12

Techniques found 0

Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage

Left0%

Center75%

Right25%

4 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Six years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, its economic impact lingers, with long COVID disrupting the employment of around one in five workers.

Why it matters

Long COVID could cost between €58.54 billion ($68 billion) and €115.3 billion ($135 billion) annually across OECD countries, including 21 EU member states, in the next decade, according to recent findings.

Common ground

Beyond its profound effects on individual health and daily living, long COVID also weighs heavily on a country's health system and national economy.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

Follow-up questions

What concrete event or decision sits underneath the headline: Long COVID could cost up to €115.3bn per year over the next decade, study shows?
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that if the estimated losses were compared with the economic burden of stroke, the cost to Europe would be around €60 billion?
What should readers watch for in the next update to know whether the story is changing?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://euronews.com/my-europe/2026/04/13/long-covid-costs-could-cost-up-to-1153…

analyticsAnalysis

10%

Propaganda Score

confidence: 95%

Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 12 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

verified Verified By Reference 5

schedule Pending 2

info Single Source 2

help Insufficient Evidence 2

verified Verified 1

schedule

Claim 1: “if the estimated losses were compared with the economic burden of stroke, the cost to Europe would be around €60 billion”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 2: “if the socio-economic impact of long COVID is compared with other major chronic conditions, such as the national burden of multiple sclerosis, it would cost France about €2.7 billion and Italy about €4.8 billion a year, according to the OECD report”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

verified

Claim 3: “Projections to 2035 show that... more realistic scenarios predict persistent annual losses of 0.1% and 0.2% of GDP”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

The evidence mentions that Long COVID reduces worker productivity and causes economic harm, but it does not provide the specific GDP loss projections of 0.1% to 0.2% through 2035.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — On 9 March 2020, the government of Italy under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte imposed a national lockdown or quarantine, restricting the movement of the population except for necessity, work, and healt…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lockdowns_in_Italy

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The United Arab Emirates is a high-income developing market economy (Open market economy), which also advocates for Islamic economics. Its economy is the 4th largest in the Middle East (after Turkey, …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Arab_Emi…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Zero-COVID, also known as COVID-Zero and "Find, Test, Trace, Isolate, and Support" (FTTIS), was a public health policy implemented by some countries, especially China, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-COVID

+ 3 more evidence sources

verified

Claim 4: “long COVID disrupting the employment of around one in five workers”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

While evidence mentions that Long COVID affects employment and that some patients use remote work/flex time, there is no specific statistic in the provided evidence confirming that 'one in five workers' (20%) are disrupted.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Long COVID or long-haul COVID is a group of health problems persisting or developing after an initial period of COVID‑19 from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Symptoms can last weeks, months, or years and are of…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_COVID

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The symptoms of COVID-19 are variable depending on the type of variant contracted, ranging from mild symptoms to a potentially fatal illness. Common symptoms include coughing, fever, loss of smell and…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symptoms_of_COVID-19

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of notable people with long COVID, an umbrella term for persistent health problems triggered by COVID-19. People on this list may currently have long COVID, have recovered, or have died…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_long_COVID

+ 3 more evidence sources

verified

Claim 5: “Long COVID could cost between €58.54 billion ($68 billion) and €115.3 billion ($135 billion) annually across OECD countries, including 21 EU member states, in the next decade”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

The provided evidence for this claim consists of dictionary definitions of the word 'annual' and general Wikipedia entries on the COVID-19 recession. No specific financial projections regarding the cost of Long COVID across OECD countries were found in the evidence.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The COVID-19 recession was a global economic recession caused by COVID-19 lockdowns. The recession began in most countries in February 2020. After a year of global economic slowdown that saw stagnatio…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_recession

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the environment, with changes in human activity leading to temporary changes in air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and water quality. As the pandemic be…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_COVID-19_pandemi…

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+ 3 more evidence sources

verified

Claim 6: “While less than 1% of the population of EU and OECD countries is expected to suffer from it over the next 10 years, around 75 million people had the illness in 2021”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

The evidence provided consists of dictionary definitions for 'approximately' and general EU population/economic data. There is no evidence confirming the specific figure of 75 million people with the illness in 2021 or the 1% projection.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The European Union's economy combines the national economies of the supranational organization's member states. It makes up the majority of the European economy as the second largest economy in the wo…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe. A supranational union with a total area of 4,233,255 km2 (1,634,469 sq mi) and an es…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Next Generation EU (NGEU) is a European Commission economic recovery package to support the EU member states to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular those that have been particularly hard…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_EU

+ 3 more evidence sources

info

Claim 7: “This year, approximately 1.1 million people in Bulgaria, 1.4 million people in Hungary and 1.2 million people in Czechia were living with long COVID”

SINGLE SOURCE

The evidence provides global estimates (65-200 million) but does not provide the specific country-level numbers for Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechia.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Globally, accepted estimates have suggested between 65 million and 200 million people have long COVID. That could mean between 19.5 million and 60 million people face years of impairment based on the …
https://www.voanews.com/a/many-long-covid-patients-adjust-to…

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web search NEUTRAL — Long Covid did return to the news last week, with the publication of data from a multi-centre study suggesting that fewer than 30% of patients hospitalised with acute Covid had fully recovered a year …
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/22/long-c…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — This game is stellar and I wanted to take the time to hopefully help somebody learn the basics. Stay tuned, we might even go into advanced systems soon!If yo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB4TNq28Q1A

verified

Claim 8: “the direct healthcare costs for tackling the disease will remain high until at least 2035, at around €9.5 billion a year”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

The evidence discusses general healthcare costs and the struggle of patients in high-income countries, but does not mention the specific figure of €9.5 billion per year until 2035.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This article contains the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths per population as of 19 May 2026, by country. It also has cumulative death totals by country. For these numbers over time see the tables,…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Starting in January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The global COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic

+ 3 more evidence sources

help

Claim 9: “Only Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands have structured plans that outline the main steps in the care of patients with a specific clinical problem”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was found after searching for this specific claim regarding structured clinical care plans in these countries.

info

Claim 10: “In 2021, parts of Eastern and Central Europe were the most affected by the disease”

SINGLE SOURCE

The evidence mentions that nearly 36 million people in Europe suffer from Long COVID, but it does not specify that Eastern and Central Europe were the 'most affected' regions in 2021.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — This is a general overview and status of places affected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, the virus which causes coronavirus disease 2019 and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemi…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_by_country_a…

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web search NEUTRAL — Next ArticleMental health before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a …
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0…

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — "Long COVID" is the term used to describe the development of new symptoms, months after the initial COVID-19 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least 8 weeks. It can affect anyone exposed t…
https://www.dw.com/en/who-nearly-36-million-in-europe-suffer…

verified

Claim 11: “infection with the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus increases the risk of developing a range of chronic conditions — including cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, neurological impairments and autoimmune disorders”

VERIFIED

Web search results confirm that SARS-CoV-2 is associated with long-term negative consequences including cognitive impairment and neurological impairments. The claim regarding the range of chronic conditions is supported by the provided medical research summaries.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the virus responsible for its pathogenesis.A complete understanding of SARS-CoV-2 neurological impairments is still lacking, but our kno…
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33464535/

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — SARS‑CoV‑2 belongs to the broad family of viruses known as coronaviruses.[29] It is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA (+ssRNA) virus, with a single linear RNA segment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — Severe systemic inflammation caused by SARS-CoV-2 is predicted to have long-term negative consequences, such as cognitive impairment. Research has demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2-infected AD patients had…
https://www.c19.life/resource-sars-cov-2-covid-19-genomic-se…

help

Claim 12: “research from the UK found that flexibility at work is key for long COVID support”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was found after searching for this specific UK research regarding workplace flexibility.

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.