The governors of New York and Michigan are calling for Congressional oversight into the Trump pandemic response, including its hampering of federal assistance and politicization.
The statement cites the following issues:
- Trump’s admission to journalist Bob Woodward that he publicly downplayed the severity of the virus despite knowing its deadly potential.
- The White House nixing a federal plan to distribute masks across the country using the mail, including to Wayne County and other hard-hit areas.
- Multiple reversals on coronavirus guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including incorrectly stating asymptomatic people exposed to someone with the virus should not get tested.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice sent data requests to Whitmer, Cuomo and Democratic governors in Pennsylvania and New Jersey regarding COVID-19 policies and nursing homes. The DOJ said the requests went to states where orders “may have resulted in the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home residents.”
While roughly a third of COVID deaths in Michigan came from nursing homes, Whitmer denies forcing nursing homes to take COVID patients, as Republicans have criticized New York and Michigan of doing.
Whitmer said there has not been a single instance where the state ordered nursing homes to keep COVID-19 patients.
She said the state followed CDC guidance to allow nursing home residents to come back after they were hospitalized as long as they had a separate unit that was separately staffed.
“That was the CDC guidelines, that’s what we followed,” she said. “We never required a single nursing home to take in a patient that was recovering from COVID-19, it’s just plain false.”
See the Detroit Free Press
