1 July 2022: Opinion - Still Few Answers for COVID Deaths in Michigan Nursing Homes

LeDuff: Still few answers for COVID deaths in nursing homes

Detroit-area columnist Charlie LeDuff has changed outlets for his written columns, but is still following Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's version of Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing homes deaths scandals. Here's an excerpt from his 28 June 2022 column in The Detroit News:

When disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo commanded nursing homes to accept COVID patients in March 2020, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer followed the leader.

When it became obvious that people were dying at alarming rates, Cuomo cut bait and banned the practice altogether.

Not Whitmer. A week after Cuomo's about-face, Whitmer doubled down with executive order 2020-95: “A nursing home must make all reasonable efforts to create a unit dedicated to the care and isolation of COVID 19 affected residents.”

Now that she is seeking re-election, Whitmer denies she ever ordered the housing of the COVID sick in the same building as the healthy. This can generously be called an un-truth.

How many people in Michigan died? We'll probably never know. Just as there is no telling how many seniors died in Michigan's other senior living communities. State health officials decided to ignore Whitmer's order to count them, which was also part of her May 2020 directive.

After all, why would the people who could be charged with criminal neglect or manslaughter from their roles in executing Whitmer's executive order want to compile evidence confirming the obvious negative consequence of their actions?

Do click through to read the rest of LeDuff's column, which names the state officials most culpable for failing Michigan's residents of nursing home and assisted living facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.