16 March 2021: A Primer on Pennsylvania's COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandal

1 year later: Reflecting on a disastrous policy and the preventable deaths of over 12,600 Pa. residents

If you're not familiar with Pennsylvania's version of New York's COVID nursing home scandal, this op-ed from Pennsylvania state senator Doug Mastriano provides a nice primer of Governor Thomas Wolf's own deadly directive:

In March 2020, Governor Wolf faced a crucial decision in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The CDC issued guidance for long term care facilities to all 50 States. "Guidance" is the important word here as this was not a "directive" to each Governor.

The March 13th CDC guidance stated that nursing homes "should" admit any individuals that they would normally admit (with or without COVID). But it did not say that they “must” admit these individuals.

The governors of forty-five out of the all fifty states followed the science and rejected the absurd, science denying idea of sending sick COVID patients into the most vulnerable population. However, the governors of five states (Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Michigan and California), foolishly and recklessly rejected science-based germ theory and had their respective health secretaries issue guidance to send the sick back into long term care facilities.

Mastriano is a little out-of-date with the third paragraph, with the recent confirmation that the state of Washington, under Governor Jay Inslee direction, adopted a policy that similarly exposed Washington nursing home residents to COVID patients discharged to free up space in hospitals.

Regardless, Pennsylvania's Wolf slightly beat New York to the punch in implementing its own deadly directive:

The ensuing fallout from the March 18th directive was predictable. The admission of COVID-positive residents into nursing homes accelerated the transmission of the virus and exposed our state’s most vulnerable residents to severe illness and death. By May, cases of the virus in nursing homes spread like wildfire. Roughly two-thirds of COVID deaths at the time were residents of long-term care facilities. In several counties, 100% of all COVID deaths were in these very facilities.

Privately, Secretary Levine realized the failure of the policy six weeks after the fateful decision. At that time, 70% of all deaths in Pennsylvania were as a result of Levine’s science-denying directive. Fearing for the safety of her own mom (then 95 years old and in an elder home), Levine whisked her out of the facility and into the safety of a hotel suite. Instead of having the moral fortitude to alert Pennsylvania of the danger that resulted from this failed policy, Levine never gave the citizens of our state the same chance or warning to protect their own loved ones. Incidentally, the world learned of Levine’s sinister behavior the day after I demanded her resignation for incompetence and gross negligence in May 2020.

"Secretary Levine" refers to Rachel Levine, who President Biden seeks to install as a deputy secretary in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Is it us, or does President Biden seem like he's okay with all those excess COVID nursing home deaths resulting from these states' policies?