Although the U.S. Department of Justice has dropped their investigation of thousands of nursing home deaths in three states (New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan), it will continue to investigate New Jersey’s pandemic edicts which caused 10,000 frail and elderly to die in nursing homes.
Investigators have begun interviewing families whose loved ones perished in veteran nursing homes in Menlo Park and Paramus.
Senator Joe Pennacchio points to the importance of this investigation, citing the Governor’s remarks claiming the virus was not forced into nursing home communities and the state was always there to help.
“These were State run facilities,” said Pennacchio (R-26). “They obviously did not get the Governor’s memo about not being forced to take on Covid patients. It is classic ‘do as I say, not as I do’ scenario.”
The Senator went on to chastise the Governor’s actions, pointing out his nursing home directives which prohibited testing of patients entering nursing facilities.
“How could nursing homes reach out to the State for help when they were not even allowed to test for Covid? It seemed like a blind way of handling public health policy,” said Pennacchio.
Senator Pennacchio has been leading the charge calling for a bi-partisan committee with subpoena powers to hold hearings to investigate the Administration’s Covid policies.
“Nationally, other states applied common sense and knew that blindly introducing Covid to nursing homes could be disastrous. Unfortunately, New Jersey did not,” concluded Pennacchio.