15 January 2022: Michigan Auditors Report 2,400 More Long-Term Care COVID Deaths

Michigan auditors report 2,400 more long-term care deaths

The Associated Press obtained access to the Michigan State Auditor General's report on COVID deaths in the states nursing and long-term care facilities.

Michigan auditors found nearly 2,400 additional COVID-19 deaths linked to long-term care facilities over an 18-month period, both at places that report coronavirus deaths to the state and homes that do not.

The figure was disclosed in a review that was obtained by The Associated Press on Friday before its public release by the auditor general Monday. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration has disputed the methodology and conclusions in the report.

Auditors reported 8,061 confirmed or positive COVID-19 deaths tied to nursing homes, homes for the aged and adult foster-care facilities as of early July. The difference between that number and what the state health department had reported — 5,675 — is nearly 30%.

Doing the exact math, the total of 8,061 COVID deaths among residents of Michigan's nursing homes and other long-term care facilities for the elderly represents an increase of 2,376 (or 29.6%) above Michigan's state government's official total, which indeed is nearly 30%.

LeDuff: Report On Undercount Of Elderly Covid Deaths In Michigan Spells Political Trouble For Whitmer

In this report on the attempt by the Whitmer administration to discredit the state auditor general's report before it is released, Charlie LeDuff takes on the Michigan State Health Director Elizabeth Hertel's arguments. The following extended excerpt pokes holes in Hertel's attempt and also indicates how his higher estimate of 42% of COVID deaths going underreported in Michigan is arrived at.

Hertel has challenged the abilities of state Auditor General Doug Ringler, telling anyone who doesn’t know any better that many of the deaths in his report do not fit the “legal definitions” used by her department or the CDC.

But even with these lame attempts to deflect criticism, the Health Department has been forced to admit that at least three of every 10 Covid deaths at long-term-care facilities were never properly counted. If true, this would amount to a 42-percent increase in the number of deaths over what MDHHS is claiming. Welcome to Cuomoville.

Director Hertel argues that she did not require smaller facilities to report deaths to the state government. That statement alone shows the scope of the Department’s failure. It begs the question: Why did MDHHS choose not to track these facilities that are licensed by the state? Aren't their residents as elderly and vulnerable as the others?

When the Whitmer administration issued her executive orders requiring the admission of Covid patients to nursing homes, she continually cited to science and data as justifying her decisions. Failing to track deaths at facilities housing our woefully vulnerable elderly simply because they were not legally required to report hardly suggests the most scientific or data driven approach.

Worse, Hertel's statement tacitly admits that half of the facilities that MDHHS did track undercounted deaths. Which would mean that even in these facilities MDHHS was doing a terrible job.

The director’s letter to the auditor general has been quoted as stating: “I fear that your letter will be misinterpreted to question the work and integrity of long-term care facilities local health departments, coroners and other frontline workers who we rely on to report data.”

Those fears are well-founded, but not because the auditor general applied capricious and flawed methodology. Rather, it’s because the auditor general discovered that MDHHS wasn’t keeping an accurate count. And whether that amounts to a lack of integrity by reporting facilities, or an incompetent tracking program, the numbers don’t lie.

At a minimum, Michigan's state health department failed in an essential task during a public health emergency. There needs to be consequences in the Whitmer administration for tolerating that level of failure.