On April 13, 2020, the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission passed an Emergency Amendment to the Commission’s Rules of Evidence, which was published April 16, 2020. The new rule provides that, whenever the employee claiming workers’ compensation coverage is a COVID-19 “First Responder or Front-Line Worker,” and the employee’s injury, occupational disease, or incapacity resulted from exposure to the COVID-19 virus during the COVID-19 state of emergency, there will be a rebuttable presumption that the condition was causally connected to the hazards or exposures of the employee’s employment. This means that, should an employee covered by the Emergency Amendment become ill with COVID-19 and file a workers’ compensation claim, there is a significant likelihood that the condition will be covered by workers’ compensation.
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