Washington is reporting that workers filed 252 workers compensation claims as of March 27, with 216 of them belonging to first responders, according to data from the Washington Department of Labor and Industries.

Single-payer state worker compensation systems have started seeing claim activity related to COVID-19, although initial reports show that some of the applicants may not qualify, according to officials in three states.

Ohio, which also operates as a workers compensation monopoly system, as of Monday received 25 claims from workers in both the private and public sector who believe they contracted the virus in the workplace, according to a spokesman with the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation. Six of those claims have since withdrawn “because they filed in error – some thought they were applying for unemployment, for example,” the spokesman wrote in an email.

The bureau does not know “how many, if any, of these workers have actually tested positive for COVID, and we haven’t determined which claims to allow yet,” he wrote.

A labor department spokesman in Washington reported that 96 of its 252 claims have closed with just four individuals having tested for coronavirus. The others may have been sent to quarantine because of exposure, according to the spokesman.

The Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, which provides workers compensation coverage for employers statewide, saw claims rise from 510 to 2,339 in late March, likely related to COVID-19. Weekly claim filings early in 2020 stayed in the 500 to 600 range, according to state data.

“You can infer that the majority of the 1,829 (or possibly even more) additional people who filed” for workers compensation between the week of March 16 and March 23 did so as a result of possible exposure, a spokesman for the Wyoming department wrote in an email.

North Dakota, which also covers comp for employers statewide, did not respond to requests for claims data.

More insurance and risk management news on the coronavirus crisis here.