What should essential workers do to make sure that a COVID-19 infection is easier to show it arose at work?
Best practices include staying out of mass transit and confined spaces, home delivery of meals and groceries, and limiting social interaction to close, non-infected family and friends. The nightmare scenario if you're an employer (especially in healthcare) is an identiable patient or co-employee is positive and a healthcare worker contracts the virus within a short period following.
From a liability standpoint, the cases against employers even without identifiable exposure are stronger as long as the stay at home orders remain in place, because this weakens the defense that the disease was contracted in the ordinary course of life.
Ask a hypothetical expert how he knows how a worker contracted the disease at work. A: "she was an essential worker who continued to work in a healthcare setting where exposure to the virus was at high risk due to proximity and duration of time with patients. She testified that she only went to and from work, was not attending church during this period, and had all of her meals and groceries delivered. She, her spouse, and children remained at home. Therefore, within reasonable probability, the exposure that led to the disease and ultimate death occurred at work."
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