Innovation is Necessary to Meet the Challenge of COVID in 2022

COVID is the most extensive occupational exposure event in the history of the United States. Workplaces are now primed for a massive wave of compensation claims due to the Omicron variant. A recent study provides a potential opportunity for employers and insurance companies to reduce their risk exposure through early sequencing and treatment proactively.This year will present unique challenges to the workers’ compensation benefit delivery system as it attempts to meet the demands of widespread infectious disease in the workplace. Multiple factors will stress the system beyond what the program was designed to handle. Significant coordination by all stakeholders in cooperation with non-political objective science public health programs will be needed for the system to meet the enormous demands that it will encounter. Employers, insurance companies, and Labor organizations should pro-actively encourage and implement new and innovative diagnostics and treatments to facilitate recovery as quickly as possible.