The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented shock to the global economy and its potential scarring effects are thus difficult to predict. This column presents estimates of the long-term impact of past crises, suggesting that past epidemics and other exogenous shocks did not cause scarring effects, while the negative impact of financial crises on the long-term level of potential growth tends to be persistent. However, unlike previous exogenous shocks, the COVID-19 pandemic could affect the supply side of the economy through several channels and thus lead to a permanently lower level of potential output.