14 January 2022: State Auditor to Report Michigan Undercounted COVID Nursing Home Deaths by Wide Margin

LeDuff: Michigan undercounted COVID-19 nursing home deaths

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff broke the news that Michigan's Auditor General will report Michigan substantially undercounted the full extent of COVID deaths among that state's nursing home residents. This report summarizes the basics of what he is reporting (since he did so through his Facebook page on 13 January 2022):

A report from Auditor General Doug Ringler scheduled for a Monday release is expected to show the state undercounted COVID-19 long-term care deaths.

On Wednesday, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff posted on Facebook:

“Covid Deaths in Michigan's long-term care facilities are 42% higher than the Whitmer Administration admits, according a preliminary report by state's Auditor General. This puts Whitmer's Michigan on par with Cuomo's New York in terms of concealing the truth about LTCFs. More to come.”

LeDuff sued the state's health department last May, alleging it undercounted COVID-19 nursing home deaths and other long-term care facilities (LTCF).

What we know of the pending state auditor general's report suggests LeDuff is right: Michigan undercounted COVID nursing home deaths.

That's significant because that puts Michigan into the same category as New York, where Andrew M. Cuomo purposefully covered-up the full extent of COVID nursing home deaths during the period his deadly 25 March 2020 directive. Michigan's Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued her own version of that directive, joining New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania as the only states to adopt and sustain such a such a policy.

Unlike New York, where state officials possessed detailed data on where COVID victims lived, which is what the Cuomo administration covered-up, Michigan public health officials stopped tracking where COVID victims lived, so it never compiled that data in the first place.

LeDuff's reporting indicates the state auditor's report will find the number of COVID deaths among Michigan nursing home and long term care residents is 42% higher than Gretchen Whitmer's administration officially acknowledges.

In a previous interview with The Center Square, LeDuff compared the situation to New York, where former Gov. Andrew Cuomo suppressed the real number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths.

“New York kept count and lied about it. Michigan started looking into it, found a number they didn’t like, and they stopped counting,” LeDuff said. “Which is worse?"

It's a different form of cover-up, one that could potentially be attributed to incompetence on the part of Michigan state government employees. If there is evidence Whitmer administration officials purposefully terminated efforts to trace where COVID victims lived and contracted their fatal coronavirus infection, that would make Michigan's undercount of COVID nursing home deaths worse, because it indicates a more sophisticated level of corrupt premeditation.