Families of Health Workers Killed by Virus Are Denied Benefits

https://www.thedailybeast.com/families-of-health-workers-killed-by-virus-are-denied-benefits

James “Mike” Anderson was a hospital employee in suburban Philadelphia with a low-profile though critical job: changing air filters in COVID patients’ rooms.

By late March, new COVID cases in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, had ramped up to as many as 90 per day. At the hospital, Anderson handled air filters and other surfaces that might have been contaminated with the deadly virus, also known to hang in the air.

In early April, Anderson, 51, came down with what he thought was a cold, according to his family’s lawyer, David Stern. On April 13 Anderson was rushed to the hospital, where he died of acute respiratory distress syndrome from COVID-19, according to the county coroner. He left behind a wife and two children, ages 5 and 9.

Anderson was exposed to the virus at work, the lawyer contends, making his family eligible for workers’ compensation death benefits paid by his employer's insurer.

“His family deserves to have that income replaced,” Stern said. “Their husband and father certainly can’t be.”

But in a June 16 response to Stern's death benefits claim, St. Mary Medical Center denied all allegations.

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