California workers comp COVID claims nearly triple in May
The California Workers’ Compensation Institute on Wednesday reported that the number of claims for COVID-19 nearly tripled in May.
The latest figures show that after hitting a 10-month low of 1,303 claims in March of this year, the tally increased nearly 83% to 2,381 claims in April, then jumped 182% in May to 6,704 claims, producing a fivefold increase in COVID-19 claim volume during the spring surge, according to a bulletin.
With the Division of Workers’ Compensation still receiving COVID-19 claims from those three months, CWCI said that after controlling for late-reported claims, it projects a total of 7,911 claims for May, 2,524 for April and 1,344 for March.
“While both the reported and projected COVID claim numbers have been trending up from the March low, the number of COVID claims remains well below the all-time high recorded in January of this year, as the latest update shows there were 54,165 COVID-19 claims reported for January, while the institute’s ultimate projected claim count for that month is now 55,248,” CWCI said.
CWCI said COVID-19 claims have accounted for 17.3% of all workers compensation claims since the pandemic started. It said 269,756 COVID-19 claims have been filed since March 2020.
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