What cannot be cured must be endured: The long-lasting effect of a COVID-19 infection on workplace productivity

•We estimate the causal effect of a COVID-19 infection on individual productivity.•We identify a population effect as all true infections are identified.•We find a persistent deterioration for more than half a year after an infection.•Other respiratory infections do not have the same effect.•Individual productivity is negatively affected by infections of colleagues. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered economic shock waves across the globe. Exploiting a natural experiment, this paper estimates how being infected with the virus shapes individual-level productivity after having recovered. Studying the performance of professional athletes in Germany and Italy and applying a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that individual performance drops by around 6 percent after a previously infected athlete returns to the pitch. This striking deterioration remains persistent over time – amounting to 5% eight months after the infection. The effect increases with age and infection severity, and is spread disproportionally over the course of a match. We detect no productivity effects for other respiratory infections. We take these findings as first evidence that the pandemic might cause long-lasting effects on worker productivity and economic growth.