Virginia has passed a law making it easier for some healthcare workers who become ill with COVID-19 to collect medical expenses or lost wages. However, the law excludes healthcare workers who are offered a vaccine at work and refuse it. The bill, retroactive to March 12, 2020, was signed into law by Governor Ralph Northam yesterday. The new law presumes that death or disability from COVID-19 for healthcare workers who have had contact with a known COVID positive patient is an occupational hazard, allowing them to collect workers compensation insurance benefits. The bill allows potentially hundreds of workers to claim benefits they were previously denied because of the difficulty of proving where a worker was infected with COVID-19.
See "Virginia Law Denies Benefits to Some Healthcare Workers Who Refuse COVID-19 Vaccine", Tom Hals , Reuters, April 1, 2021