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5. Employers face ‘gray area’ with comp, coronavirus, experts say

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5. Employers face ‘gray area’ with comp, coronavirus, experts say

Just as COVID-19 baffled the medical community early in the pandemic, workers compensation legal experts found conundrums in the virus and what it would mean to workers who become infected.

In what was the fifth most read workers compensation story on Business Insurance’s website in 2020, Aaron D. Goldstein, a Seattle-based partner in the labor and employment practice at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, put it plainly in early March: “We don’t have precedence on this issue because we don’t have a lot of exposure to pandemics.”

Citing influenza exposure in the workplace, he said that generally “if you come down with the flu it is not a workers comp issue, maybe with the exception of health care workers.”

Then came the onslaught of executive orders and bills that created a presumption for workers who contract COVID-19. Eight months into the pandemic, however, claims experts said the number of claims filed was much less than expected.

No. 6 most read story.