A post-Thanksgiving uptick in covid-19 patients at U.S. hospitals is arriving even as health systems contend with waves of feverish, coughing people stricken with RSV and influenza infections.
Covid hospitalizations last week reached their highest level in three months, with more than 35,000 patients being treated, according to Washington Post data tracking. National hospitalizations had stagnated throughout fall but started rising in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. All but a few states reported per capita increases in the past week.
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Nearly 20,000 Americans were hospitalized with influenza during Thanksgiving week, the most for that week in more than a decade and almost double the previous week's count.
David Cutler, an economist at Harvard University who projected the $3.7 trillion economic cost of long Covid, estimates the individual medical costs of the disease to be about $9,000 a year, on average. However, typical costs can range from roughly $3,700 up to almost $14,000, Cutler said.
Long Covid has affected as many as 23 million Americans. It may cost the U.S. economy $3.7 trillion, roughly that of the Great Recession, according to one estimate.
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