Long COVID patients may need long-term medical and allied care to restore body functions. Clear diagnostic criteria facilitate access to interventions and services that support social engagement and physical functions.

Standardlizing Healthcare Providing

Clear diagnostic criteria will reduce uncertainty and validate the experience of long COVID patients, including those who were not able to test at the time of persumed infection. 

Help with Further Research

Clear diagnostic criteria can support long COVID and become part of legal recognition of disability through acts in a different country such as the Americans with Disabilities Act in the U.S. and the Equality Act 2010 in the U.K.

Help with Long COVID legistration 

- Access to unemployment or other benefits
- Modifications to work duties or schedule
- Allowances for remote working when symptoms are severe 
- Flexible attendance and modified activities for students with brain fog 
- Increasing training, availability, and funding for home care aides for families in order to help patients that are care givers and primary earners 

Efforts Needed for Long COVID patients

Long COVID has not been studied enough and people are not able to understand who with what symptoms can be defined as a patient with Long COVID disability. Clear clinical diagnostic criteria of COVID-19 can benefit patients with disabling sytmptoms in at least three ways:

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Long covid itself may not be a disability but given its potentially debilitating effects on people’s lives, it can be disabling. Long covid symptoms may also constitute disabilities because of loss of human function or because of a persistent impairment that undermines a person’s quality of life. 
An employment tribunal in the UK has for the first time ruled that a person’s long-COVID is a disability protected by the Equality Act 2010 in July 29th, 2022. 

Long COVID in United Kingdom

 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-069868 (Published 01 August 2022) https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2021-069868

Long covid and disability: a brave new world

- here must be a physical or mental impairment 
- The disability lasts for longer than 12 months
- The disability causes a substantial impact on one's day-to-day activities 

The Equality Act and Long COVID-19

Clear Diagnostic Criteria on COVID-19 

33281 laboratory-confirmed COVID infections were followed-up via 6, 12 and 18-month questionnaires and linkage to hospitalization and death records to find out relationships between long COVID and possible factors such as age, gender, and previous health issues. Previous symptomatic infection was associated with persistent symptoms and poorer quality of life. Vaccination was associated with a reduced risk of seven symptoms.

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