Now, millions of people may be sidelined from their jobs due to long COVID. Katie Bach, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, drew on survey data from the Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and the Lancet to come up with what she says is a conservative estimate: 4 million full-time equivalent workers out of work because of long COVID.

“That is just a shocking number,” says Bach. “That’s 2.4% of the U.S. working population.”…

Accommodations in the workplace might include flexibility in where someone works, extended leave, or a new role in a different department. The goal is to get workers on a path back, says Roberta Etcheverry, CEO of Diversified Management Group, a disability management consulting firm.

But with long COVID, it’s difficult to measure whether an employee is in fact on a path back.