The Long Legacy of COVID-19 Disability

The legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic persists. There exists a continuing need for long-term treatment and disability. While state benefit systems such as workers’ compensation have made an admirable attempt in many jurisdictions to provide benefits, a significant gap and non-uniform delivery of benefits continue to exist among jurisdictions. Federal efforts are expanding to provide necessary research and treatment protocol resources.The Federal government has emerged as a resource for continued research and treatment of the long-term effects of COVID. Those efforts will be of immense assistance in battling Long Covid. An appropriate next step would be to determine what Federal program(s) can be implemented to provide lifelong disability benefits and medical treatment for the victims of occupational Long COVID that will fill the gap of the fragmented, inconsistent, and litigious patchwork of workers’ compensation programs