You're forgetting one of the fundamental things about money: it flows. While the total amount of money in our economy might be finite, that finite amount of money changes hands quite a bit. For each of these various headlines, the issue isn't that this money was actually lost, it's that the money didn't travel through the related industry (or whatever); meaning that these instances of "lost productivity" were effectively blockages in the activity of our economy.
Also, remember that most of these types of things are going to be statements of aggregate "losses"; one worker having to take a day to resolve his or her gastro-intestinal issues (or to go see the latest...well, whatever) might not seem like much, but add it up over every instance of it happening over every industry in which it happens, and you get these huge figures.
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You're forgetting one of the fundamental things about money: it flows. While the total amount of money in our economy might be finite, that finite amount of money changes hands quite a bit. For each of these various headlines, the issue isn't that this money was actually lost, it's that the money didn't travel through the related industry (or whatever); meaning that these instances of "lost productivity" were effectively blockages in the activity of our economy.
Also, remember that most of these types of things are going to be statements of aggregate "losses"; one worker having to take a day to resolve his or her gastro-intestinal issues (or to go see the latest...well, whatever) might not seem like much, but add it up over every instance of it happening over every industry in which it happens, and you get these huge figures.