Michigan DHHS Director Confident COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths Are Undercounted

During a Michigan Senate Oversight Committee hearing today on Gov. Whitmer’s nursing homes executive order, Chairman Ed McBroom asked Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) Director Robert Gordon what data the department was using to measure success. Gordon stated: “There are a lot of data challenges… We have data, I don’t think they’re at a level of accuracy at this point that we can really stand behind…” 

Oversight Committee Chairman McBroom followed up by asking if the recently reported 687 nursing home deaths are COVID-19 related. Director Gordon replied:

That number is COVID related deaths that have been reported, I do not stand behind that number as an accurate and full accounting of COVID related nursing home deaths and I wouldn’t want us to present it that way… I think that number is probably, in fact, I’m confident that number is an undercount.

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In response to a question from Senator Lana Theis, Director Gordon again states: 

As I said… we are working with the data that we have… we are working very hard to improve the quality of the data… unfortunately we are in a situation where we have to act on the information that we have and we are not able to wait for better data…

When Senator Theis followed up to get a clearer answer on MDHHS’s nursing home policies, Director Gordon replied, “This is a world without perfect solutions.” 

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Gov. Whitmer repeatedly says she is using facts and science to guide decisions but refuses to state what the facts and data are. The MDHHS Director admitted multiple times that they don’t have accurate data seven weeks into the shutdown and a month after Whitmer’s nursing home executive order. It’s time for Gov. Whitmer to be honest with Michiganders about what the data and facts really are and right now it appears they are incomplete at best. – Tori Sachs, executive director of Michigan Rising Action.

Democrat state representative Leslie Love has voiced criticism of Michigan’s nursing home policy that “has been putting long-term care patients recovering from the virus in the same facilities with patients who don’t have the virus.” 

WXYZ previously reported that a “Sterling Heights senior care center saw a spike in COVID-19 cases among residents after accepting two dozen positive patients recently discharged from area hospitals.”