The health impact of long COVID during the 2021-2022 Omicron wave in Australia: a quantitative burden of disease study.

This study provides a comprehensive approach to estimating the morbidity due to long COVID. Improved data on long COVID symptoms will improve the accuracy of these estimates. As data accumulate on SARS-CoV-2 infection sequelae (e.g. increased cardiovascular disease rates), total health loss is likely to be higher than estimated in this study. Nevertheless, this study demonstrates that long COVID requires consideration in pandemic policy planning, given it is responsible for the majority of direct SARS-CoV-2 morbidity, including during an Omicron wave in a highly vaccinated population.