N.Y. provided ‘very modest’ support for workers with COVID: Study

New York’s workers compensation system provided only limited support for essential workers who contracted COVID-19, according to an abstract of a study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Researchers analyzed COVID-19 claims from workers at nursing care facilities and compared them with recorded nursing home staff COVID-19 infections and deaths reported to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2020 and 2021.

The analysis reportedly found 21.9% of 29,814 COVID-19 claims were awarded benefits, despite 86.8% of claimants working in essential industries. Study authors said 1.4% of 46,505 COVID-19 infections recorded by CMS resulted in a claim, and 7.2% of the 111 deaths recorded by CMS received death benefits.

The authors concluded that New York’s workers comp program “has provided very modest support to essential workers for the likely work-related burden of the pandemic in NYS.”

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