On April 10, 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that he was “working with New York’s Congressional delegation to create a COVID-19 Heroes Compensation Fund to support health care and other frontline workers and their families who contracted COVID-19.” This announcement followed the Governor’s previous Executive Orders directing all “non-essential” workers to telecommute and identifying “essential businesses” that would remain operational, and whose workers were therefore required to physically report to work in order to remain employed. Executive Orders 202.6, 202.7 and 202.8.
There is no question about the urgent need to provide compensation and medical treatment for “essential workers” who have fallen ill and died from COVID-19. Unlike many professionals and white-collar workers, their essential work cannot be done remotely, and instead they are exposed daily to a high risk of infection, often without adequate protective equipment. As a result, thousands of essential workers across a range of occupations—health care, transit, delivery services, police, utilities, grocery workers and more—have fallen ill; hundreds have died.
