Surprising age groups Covid is hospitalising and killing, as virus surges across Vic again

The time it takes some people to recover from Covid has been revealed, amid revelations some sufferers may qualify for disability pensions and NDIS support.

The amount of time it takes some people to recover from long Covid has been revealed in a landmark Australian study, following news sufferers may qualify for both disability pensions and NDIS support packages.

Groundbreaking research from Sydney’s UNSW in collaboration with the Kirby Institute and St Vincent’s Hospital — released on Thursday — shows it can take two years for immune abnormalities in long Covid patients to improve.

The globally significant study, that followed people who had contracted Covid during the country’s first wave, found the biomarkers for long Covid had “largely resolved by 24 months, providing optimism that long Covid can resolve over time”.

The ADAPT study is one of only a handful of its type in the world.

Long Covid patient “immune abnormalities” can take two years to resolve.

However, Kirby Institute director Professor Anthony Kelleher cautioned that while the finding was encouraging, it was important to remember the study was based on just one group of people who experienced an early strain of Covid, “and it is a group in which the initial Covid-19 infection was generally considered mild or moderate”.

“Immunology is a complex science, and it is impossible to say for certain that outcomes in our unvaccinated clinical cohort will be true for vaccinated people or for people who may have been infected with a different strain of Covid-19,” he said.

“What we do know is that for most people with long Covid, both their symptoms and their biomarkers improve significantly over time, and this is a cause for optimism.

“Importantly, we will continue to undertake research to understand more about why some people don’t improve, and what can be done for those people.”

It comes after the Herald Sun recently revealed Victorians as young as eight were being diagnosed with long Covid, and sufferers with the debilitating illness could potentially qualify for both NDIS support and disability pension payments.

Professor Anthony Kelleher, director of the Kirby Institute. Picture: Supplied

The Australian Department of Social Services told the Herald Sun some long Covid sufferers could potentially meet the eligibility criteria for receiving a Disability Support Pension (DSP) and assistance through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

“No disability arising from a particular medical condition or diagnosis is specifically excluded from access to the NDIS but the disability needs to meet the access criteria outlined in the NDIS Act,” a spokeswoman said, adding pensions were available to people with impairments that left them unable to work for long periods.

“Eligibility for DSP is based on functional impairment and ability to work, not on diagnosis or specific medical condition alone. A person with long Covid may meet the eligibility requirements for DSP depending on their individual circumstances,” she said.

The pensions are income support payments for people with physical, intellectual or psychiatric impairments who are unable to work for 15 or more hours per week, for at least two years.

Surprising age groups Covid is killing, as it surges again

The number of Victorians hospitalised with Covid each day is surging again, after the state enjoyed a brief respite.

An average of 116 people a day were hospitalised with the virus this week, up from 95 last week and 98 in early April.

Covid deaths have also risen to 80 in the most recent 28-day reporting period of March 6 to April 2 — more than in the previous period of February 7 to March 5.

Hospitalisation and death rates dropped in March, but surveillance data released by the Victorian Department of Health on Friday morning shows the respite was short-lived and the virus is again surging across the state, with the latest metropolitan and regional wastewater testing revealing “increasing prevalence of Covid-19 infections in the community”.

Covid is again surging in Melbourne and Victoria. Picture: David Crosling

The JN. 1 variant — a sublineage of BA. 2.86 — remains the dominant variant in Victorian wastewater samples, at about 97 per cent.

Other data in the department’s most recent report reveals younger Victorians are also succumbing to Covid, with a greater proportion of deaths in the under 50 and 50-to-64 age brackets in February this year than in February 2022.

Most deaths remain in the over 80-years-old group, however.

The data also shows Covid does not discriminate, with Victorians from all postcodes — from the most advantaged to poorest — being hospitalised with Covid.

Originally published as Surprising age groups Covid is hospitalising and killing, as virus surges across Vic again