Sunday, June 06, 2021

6 June 2021: Michigan's Whitmer Administration Warned of Deadly Consequences of Its Version of Cuomo's COVID Nursing Home Directive

LeDuff: Elderly Covid Deaths In Michigan Don't Add Up. Why Doesn't The Media Care More?

In his column critquing the poor media coverage of both New York and Michigan's COVID nursing home deaths scandals, which we featured in a separate timeline entry focusing on that subject, columnist Charlie LeDuff also broke news related to Michigan Govenor Gretchen Whitmer's version of the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive:

The latest smoking gun? A memo from the Health Care Association of Michigan, which represents nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities. It was sent to the Whitmer administration and the Department of Health and Human Services on April 16, 2020. It reads in part:

Mandate that facility with census below 80% establish a Covid-19 dedicated unit

... the vast majority of nursing facilities will be mandated to create a dedicated hub, with no funding or PPE to care for Covid-19 affected residents. While most buildings will be forced to do this, many will not be able to because of physical plant restrictions, the lack of adequate PPE, and insufficient staff to care for these residents.

Even worse, this provision will introduce Covid-19 into units where it is not yet present, endangering residents who are the most vulnerable to this virus. Because of these dangers and restrictions, this provision should be eliminated.

But the provision was not eliminated. Rather, Whitmer signed the executive order the next day.

Politicians and the press -- I can't tell much difference anymore. But no matter which side of the aisle you sit on, no matter which master we serve, we should all want the truth. There's nothing progressive about letting old people die in the darkness.

To the best of our knowledge, LeDuff is breaking news with his reporting of the Health Care Association of Michigan's "smoking gun" memo. We also think he may be off on where it fits within the timeline, so let's look more closely at that aspect of the story.

The executive order to which LeDuff refers was issued on 15 April 2020, where the Health Care Association of Michigan's memo was written the following day according to LeDuff's dates. As such, the "smoking gun" memo would represent the Health Care Association of Michigan's warning to the Whitmer administration what they believed would be the consequences from the executive order Governor Whitmer issued the day before.

The scandal would still be the failure of the Whitmer administration to either modify or rescind the policy it established after it was warned of its potential consequences by the group whose members would be charged with implementing it. They cannot say they were not told, nor that they did not know. They were warned and they chose to let Governor Whitmer's deadly executive order run unchanged for months afterward.

Here is related coverage from the timeline:

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