Forget the work-from-home revolution or quiet quitting: The Covid-19 pandemic’s biggest impact on the US labor market will be as a mass disability event. It’s a shock that the economy is not well prepared to handle.

An estimated 1 in 4 Covid patients experience symptoms lasting months. In principle, not all of them should have to leave the labor force. First, they should be able to call in sick. If work-impairing symptoms persist beyond a week or two, they should have the option of requesting reduced hours or claiming short-term disability benefits. Only in severe cases, lasting several months or more, should they have to transition to long-term disability insurance.

Unfortunately, that’s not how things operate in practice. Almost a quarter of US private-sector workers can’t take any paid sick days. More than half have no access to short-term disability insurance, and those that do must fight to get long-Covid claims approved. Affected workers have a right to request workplace accommodations such as part-time schedules, but employers have ample leeway to deny such requests as unreasonable.

Read the full article about long COVID by Kathryn A. Edwards at Bloomberg.