Covid-19 nursing homes deaths equaling 23 percent were in 4 states. Democrat governors were forcing nursing homes to admit residents who tested positive in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Michigan.
As of March 4, 510,383 Americans have died from the Chinese Coronavirus. According to the COVID Tracking project, thirty-four percent or 174,474 have been reported as residents of long-term facilities.
Four states have twenty-three percent of the Long term facility deaths, with a total of 40,058 occurring in the states where Democrat governors implemented policies forcing nursing homes to accept COVID-19 positive patients:
State COVID-19 LTC resident deaths
New York 14,450
Pennsylvania 12,565
New Jersey 7,969
Michigan 5,074
Total 40,058
Source: COVID Tracking Project (data as of March 4, 2021)
The states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Michigan have 15.9 percent of the United States population.
The Department of Justice under President Donald Trump announced in August :
The Justice Department requested COVID-19 data from the governors of states that issued orders, resulting in the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home residents. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan required nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients to their vulnerable populations, often without adequate testing.
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The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division evaluates whether to initiate investigations under the federal “Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act” (CRIPA), which protects persons’ civil rights in state-run nursing homes, among others. The Civil Rights Division seeks to determine if the state orders requiring admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes are responsible for nursing home residents’ deaths.
Will President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice take any action on this investigation?
The most controversial to date is Cuomo’s policy requiring nursing homes to admit COVID-19 positive patients, mostly because the New York State Department of Health had under-reported the deaths from nursing home residents.
On March 31, 2020, the New Jersey Department of Health required nursing homes to admit COVID-19 positive patients.
On April 15, 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen issued an executive order requiring nursing homes to accept COVID-19 positive patients:
The Pennsylvania Department of Health (PDOH) issued “Interim Guidance for Nursing Facilities During COVID-19” on March 18, 2020, which said, “Nursing care facilities must continue to accept new admissions and receive readmissions for current residents who have been discharged from the hospital who are stable to alleviate the increasing burden in the acute care settings. This may include stable patients who have had the COVID-19 virus.”
On a per-capita basis, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey have a COVID-19 LTC resident death rate significantly higher than the national average of 54.3 per 100,000.
In Michigan, the 5,o74 COVID-19 LTC deaths are 13.5 percent of the state’s 37,547 nursing facility residents, slightly below the national average of 14 percent.