The COVID pandemic’s forgotten legacy: a rising tide of disability

While political debate intensifies over rising welfare costs, a quieter crisis grows in plain sight. The COVID-19 pandemic has left behind a legacy not just of economic strain, but of permanent chronic illness. Post-viral conditions, particularly those resembling myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), have silently reshaped the employment landscape.

COVID: people have been permanently disabled – and it was predictable

At Stripy Lightbulb CIC, we warned the Government about this during the 2023 Plan for Jobs and Employment Inquiry. We cautioned that without meaningful mitigation against viral transmission; thousands would be left with disabling symptoms. That warning was not heeded. Now, our community has more than trebled in size since 2020.

These aren’t cases of delayed recovery. They are long-term, energy-limiting illnesses for which there are currently no licensed treatments, no NHS specialists, and, perhaps most damaging of all, little recognition.

ME is a complex, neurological condition, often misunderstood and routinely misdiagnosed. Many patients are initially told they suffer from anxiety or depression, a framing that delays care and undermines dignity. When mental health deteriorates, it is often the direct result of becoming disabled and facing systemic neglect, not the cause of their physical symptoms.

We are increasingly concerned that the growing number of ME cases is being obscured within the broader narrative that “mental health issues are soaring.” While mental health support is vital, conflating complex biomedical conditions like ME with psychological distress risks doing a disservice to both communities.

It not only delays accurate diagnosis and access to appropriate care for those with ME but also reinforces outdated and harmful stereotypes.

DWP: no compassion

We urge policymakers, the media, and healthcare professionals to recognise that rising disability figures are not solely the result of mental ill-health, but also of neglected physical conditions – many as a result of COVID – that remain under-resourced and misunderstood.

It’s no surprise, then, that people with ME-like symptoms are now a growing cohort among those long-term excluded from the workforce. What is surprising, if not disappointing, is how little this has informed the current welfare strategy.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is struggling to contain rising benefit claims. Yet the causes have not changed. The failure to invest in specialist care, to support ME research, or to create fit-for-purpose benefits assessments is now costing more than action ever would have. It is not compassionate to cut support from those failed by the health system; it is punitive. And it is why Stripy Lightbulb CIC launched our Dignity By Design campaign.

Dignity By Design calls for a welfare system built on truth, transparency, and lived experience. It challenges the narrative that people in our community need a push to return to work. What we need is access to care, recognition of our condition, and a realistic understanding of what it means to live with fluctuating energy and profound physical limitations. A system that truly values dignity does not ask the impossible, then punish people for failing to meet it.

Government rhetoric urging the “economically inactive” back into employment fails to account for the growing population now disabled by ME and long Covid These are individuals who want to contribute but cannot recover without care that does not currently exist. “Work Capability Assessments” remain rigid and adversarial, with many judged fit for work despite clear functional impairments. Tribunals are costly and traumatic. The result? A system that harms and fails.

We need a social contract fit for purpose

The fiscal challenge is real. But cutting support to the most unwell is not a solution. It is a moral and economic miscalculation. We believe policy should be grounded in reality, not ideology. The COVID pandemic changed the shape of disability in this country. Ignoring that fact will not improve the data.

If the Government is serious about reducing welfare dependency, it must face this uncomfortable truth. That begins by acknowledging the biomedical nature of post-viral illness and ends with investment in care pathways and specialist services. Until then, calls for personal responsibility will continue to sound like abdications of institutional responsibility.

Dignity By Design is a starting point, offering constructive solutions rooted in lived experience and economic sense. But it requires something Whitehall has been slow to show: political courage.

Recovery is not just about GDP. It’s about whether our social contract still protects those who cannot protect themselves. Denial might feel like a strategy. But for those of us living with the consequences, it feels like abandonment.

Featured image via the Canary