Controversial Decisions by Governors in NY, NJ, and PA Criticized as Factors in High Level of COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths

The governors of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are under fire for controversial nursing home policy decisions that critics say fueled coronavirus deaths in those facilities.

On March 25, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) ordered nursing homes to accept patients who tested positive for COVID-19, as the New York Postreported:

An executive at the unnamed Queens nursing home says that the facility was coronavirus-free until Gov. Andrew Cuomo forced facilities in the state to accept coronavirus patients on March 25.

In Pennsylvania, the Bucks County Courier Times reported:

On March 29, as Pennsylvania, New York and other states began ordering nursing homes to admit medically stable residents infected with the coronavirus, national trade groups warned it could unnecessarily cost more lives.

The health directives put “frail and older adults who reside in nursing homes at risk” and would “result in more people going to the hospital and more deaths,” the American Health Care Association and affiliates said at the time.

A month later, it appears government officials should have heeded the dire call to pursue different pandemic emergency plans.

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