The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday sent letters to four Democrat governors, seeking data on whether they violated federal law by requiring public nursing homes to accept recovering coronavirus patients from hospitals, potentially resulting in the deaths of “thousands.”
DOJ explained:
The Justice Department requested COVID-19 data from the governors of states that issued orders which may have resulted 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.
COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) disproportionally kills seniors with underlying health conditions and minorities. DOJ’s request for information from Govs. Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer (MI), Phil Murphy (NJ), and Tom Wolf (PA) came days after most of them lambasted President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus during the Democrat National Convention last week.
Ironically, the governors lamented that Americans are succumbing to the coronavirus despite their nursing home policy potentially contributing to the death of many seniors.
During the Republican National Convention Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged the Trump administration is “slowing the spread” and “protecting the vulnerable.”
“We are saving lives, and we are opening up America again,” he added.
DOJ said it would use the data to determine if the governors’ orders dealing with the nursing homes warrant an investigation.
“Data will help inform whether the Department of Justice will initiate investigations under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) regarding New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan’s response to COVID-19 [coronavirus disease] in public nursing homes,” the department explained in a press release.
CRIPA protects the civil rights of seniors in state-run nursing homes, among other facilities.
“No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to [a nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. [Nursing homes] are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission,” NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Department of Health ordered in March 2020, according to DOJ.
Despite New York having the most deaths of any other state and the second per capita fatality count, the governor is going around tooting his own horn about dealing with the outbreak.
Many of the deaths in New York involved senior residents, DOJ noted, citing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In May, the New York Times reported researchers found NYC’s outbreak is the primary source for the infections across America.
Mainstream media pundits and their Democrat allies have praised those governors for their response to COVID-19.
However, the mishandling of the virus by Cuomo, Whitmer, Murphy, and Wolf has resulted in some of the nation’s highest fatality counts per capita in their states with New Jersey and New York in first and second place.
Overall, the Pew Research Center determined in May that COVID-19 deaths are mainly concentrated in Democrat-controlled congressional districts, echoing other assessments that found fatality rates from the virus are higher in states led by the same party.
Besides Pennsylvania (14th), NY, NJ, and MI were among the top ten states with the highest fatality tally per one million residents as of Wednesday evening, Worldometer reported.
Although New Jersey and New York, once the epicenter of the pandemic, have mostly flattened their infection curve and their fatality counts have been low for months now, they still had the highest death count per one million residents as of Wednesday evening— 1,804 and 1,696 respectively. Michigan was in tenth place, with 670 per one million residents.
In comparison, California (D), Texas (R), and Florida (R), the top three most populous states, have a lower death count per one million and more overall cases than NY, NJ, MI, and PA. That suggests more people have caught the virus in CA, TX, and FL without dying than in the other four states.
In sheer numbers, all four Democrat-led states named by DOJ were among the top ten with the most deaths, with New York (32,918) and New Jersey (15,953) in first and second place as of Wednesday, Johns Hopkins University reported, echoing Worldometer.
Pennsylvania (7,582 deaths) reportedly came in eighth, followed by Michigan (6,684 deaths).