As Cuomo Scandal Unravels, Michigan Lawmakers Call Out Their Own Governor's Nursing Home Folly
Nursing homes seem to have been a target of Democratic public officials during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Eight Michigan Republicans sent letters to acting U.S. Attorney General Monty Wilkinson and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Wednesday to request investigations into the effects of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive orders during the coronavirus pandemic, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
According to state reports, residents of long-term care facilities represent 5,549 deaths out of a total of 15,454 deaths in Michigan due to COVID-19 — or about 36 percent.
The lawmakers requested an investigation into whether Whitmer’s April executive order, which prohibited nursing homes from denying admission from residents previously hospitalized with the coronavirus, increased the death toll of the virus.
Whitmer also signed an executive order in May that loosened restrictions on nursing home admittance.
“In late May, [Whitmer] issued a new order that also allowed residents hospitalized for COVID-19 to return to their homes even if they were still contagious,” the Detroit Free Press reported.
“Both orders also required homes to send infected residents to regional hubs, hospitals or better-equipped facilities if they did not have an isolation unit. “
State Sen. Jim Runestad, one of the eight lawmakers to write to the attorneys general, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “There are too many similarities between what happened in New York and what’s happened here in Michigan not to open an investigation. The families who lost loved ones deserve to know what happened and to get justice.
“At a time when we knew how dangerous the virus was to our seniors, the Whitmer administration ignored advice from medical experts and the nursing home industry, and put COVID patients into nursing homes with our most vulnerable.”
The lawmakers also asserted that Whitmer’s executive order resulted in COVID-19 deaths being undercounted.
The calls for investigation come just weeks after an aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed that coronavirus-related nursing home deaths were covered up in order to hide reports from the federal government.
Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo’s top aide, reportedly revealed in a two-hour-long virtual meeting that, after then-President Donald Trump claimed multiple Democratic governors “killed everyone in nursing homes” on Twitter, her team “basically … froze.”
After the FBI and a U.S. attorney’s office began investigating Cuomo’s actions, DeRosa explained, “We were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation.”
It’s baffling, and frankly disgusting, that government officials care more about covering themselves from scrutiny and legal trouble than their own constituents, but it seems that’s just the standard for Democratic leadership
Cuomo was a media darling throughout the pandemic, even being interviewed by his own brother on national television. However, between the nursing home deaths scandal and the various allegations of sexual harassment and verbal abuse, it is safe to say that he’s no longer America’s sweetheart.
Let the record show that even Whitmer had the dignity to allow COVID-related nursing home deaths to be reported. The same cannot be said for Cuomo.
Hopefully, though, lawmakers like those in Michigan will continue to expose wrongdoing in state leadership.
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