26 August 2020: DOJ Seeks Nursing Home Death Data from COVID Patient Dumping States

Department of Justice Requesting Data From Governors of States that Issued COVID-19 Orders that May Have Resulted in Deaths of Elderly Nursing Home Residents

This press release from the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that Governor Cuomo (New York), along with Governor Phil Murphy (New Jersey), Tom Wolf (Pennsylvania), and Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan) and their administrations will be investigated for their coronavirus nursing home admission policies. Here is an extended excerpt:

Today 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.

For example, on March 25, 2020, New York ordered: “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."

“Protecting the rights of some of society’s most vulnerable members, including elderly nursing home residents, is one of our country’s most important obligations," said Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Division Eric Dreiband. “We must ensure they are adequately cared for with dignity and respect and not unnecessarily put at risk."

According to the Centers for Disease Control, New York has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States, with 32,592 victims, many of them elderly. New York’s death rate by population is the second highest in the country with 1,680 deaths per million people. New Jersey’s death rate by population is 1,733 deaths per million people – the highest in the nation. In contrast, Texas’s death rate by population is 380 deaths per million people; and Texas has just over 11,000 deaths, though its population is 50 percent larger than New York and has many more recorded cases of COVID-19 – 577,537 cases in Texas versus 430,885 cases in New York. Florida’s COVID-19 death rate is 480 deaths per million; with total deaths of 10,325 and a population slightly larger than New York.

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is evaluating whether to initiate investigations under the federal “Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act" (CRIPA), which protects the civil rights of persons 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 is responsible for the deaths of nursing home residents.

On March 3, 2020, the Attorney General announced the Justice Department’s National Nursing Home Initiative. This is a comprehensive effort by the department, led by the Elder Justice Initiative and in strong partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that uses every available tool to pursue nursing homes that provide substandard care to their residents.

Here is the press release announcing the DOJ's National Nursing Home Initiative, which in being issued on 3 March 2020, clearly predates any of the coronavirus-motivated policies implemented in these states. The DOJ's announcement follows our 19 August 2020 analysis of the correlation of total deaths in each of these states with the timing of when their coronavirus nursing home forced admission policies were in effect. These are the only four states that adopted and sustained such admission policies for an extended period, which is why the DOJ is specifically demanding information from them.

For New York, we view this announcement as a major step toward a badly needed independent investigation of this situation, since Governor Cuomo and his administration have been stonewalling lawmakers and media demands for information about nursing home residents who died during the state's coronavirus epidemic.