It is anticipated that auditor General Doug Ringler will release the full report next week, detailing the vast undercount of deaths due to COVID-19 in state long-term care facilities, according to a report by the Detroit Free Press. While his report is expected to put the undercount at 30%, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff, who argued in court last year that the state underestimated the death toll, stressed that figure could actually even be as high as 42%.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Administration is already fighting back against the auditor general’s findings. In a letter released Wednesday, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel preempted Ringler’s conclusions, arguing they came from combining COVID-19 deaths at facilities that are subject to state or federal reporting requirements and those that are not.
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"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," Hertel stated.
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Facilities have reported 6,216 resident deaths and 93 deaths among staff during the pandemic, accounting for 22% of the state’s more than 28,200 confirmed deaths. The new tally will include residents who were discharged before their deaths, as well as those who died in the hospital due to something other than COVID-19 but were infected while hospitalized. The report will also count residents of assisted living facilities that are affiliated with a nursing home.
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State GOP lawmakers have previously bashed the Whitmer Administration’s strategy for caring for residents and staff at long-term care facilities. In one such example, Michigan House Oversight Committee Chairman Steve Johnson deemed the preliminary findings “a sizable and shocking undercount.”
“The number reported by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration was 30 percent lower than what the Auditor General has found. Make no mistake – this is a large discrepancy, and the report makes that clear,” Johnson declared on Thursday.
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The news hearkens back to a troubling cover-up by former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose Administration was revealed to have undercounted deaths in state facilities by over 50%, according to a report from New York Attorney General Letitia James.
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