The Claims Journal reports that data from the California Division of Workers’ Compensation as of Thursday April 16, 1,527 claims coded for COVID-19 on claims notices had been filed, according to agency spokeswoman Erika Monterroza.

Some experts say that COVID-19 claims that require admission to an intensive care unit will likely run into the six figures for medical costs alone. What’s more, employers will be taking full responsibility for whatever complications arise from a coronavirus infection far into the future.

According to Science Magazine, the lack of oxygen and widespread inflammation caused by COVID-19 can damage kidneys, liver, heart, brain and other organs. Studies show that severe pneumonia caused by other diseases sometimes lead to scarring that causes long-term breathing problems. Pneumonia also increases the risk of future illnesses, including heart attack, stroke and kidney disease.

In one study of 138 patients hospitalized in Wuhan, China due to pneumonia from COVID-19, 20 percent suffered acute respiratory distress syndrome.

A separate study published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011 found that of 109 survivors of ARDS, 51% suffered physician-diagnosed depression, anxiety or both. Perhaps more relevant to workers’ comp, that study found that just 77 percent of the 83 patients who survived throughout the study period had returned to work five years after being treated. The study found that only 39% of patients were able to walk the distance expected for their age group in six minutes five years later, suggesting a high degree of physical impairment.

The governors of Kentucky, Arkansas, North Dakota and Florida and state regulators in Illinois, Washington, Michigan and Missouri have issued executive orders or amended rules to expand eligibility for workers’ compensation.

Most of those decrees ease the path for benefits only for healthcare workers and first responders, but an emergency order by the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission creates a presumption that work is the cause of COVID-19 if contracted by any “frontline worker” identified in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s March 20 stay-at-home order. That includes workers at grocery stores, laundries, banks and hardware stores, among other businesses.

Kentucky Gov. Beshear issued a similarly broad executive order that created a COVID-19 presumption for workers in grocery stores, child-care centers, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers, in addition to first responders and healthcare workers.

In the meantime state legislators are also pushing to expand benefits for COVID-19. Earlier this month, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R), Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) signed into law bills that create a COVID-19 presumptions for first responders and some healthcare workers.

Bills to create presumptions for COVID-19 have been introduced in the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Utah state legislatures.