New Jersey Democrats remain silent on Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) decision to put coronavirus patients in nursing homes.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Murphy instituted a controversial order to require that New Jersey nursing homes take coronavirus patients.
New Jersey Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine said that, as of last week, the coronavirus death toll for long-term-care facilities, or nursing homes, was 5,459. “That’s about 53 percent of the states’ total Covid-19 fatalities,” Mulshine emphasized.
According to recent Kaiser Family Foundation data, New Jersey has the second-highest rate of coronavirus-related deaths in the nation.
The rising problem of coronavirus deaths prompted New Jersey state Senate Republicans to call for an investigation into the coronavirus outbreak at New Jersey nursing homes.
Mulshine asked Murphy if the state had required full screening for nursing home staff members, to which the governor said that it would be required by May 26.
He wrote, “May 26? The first big CV-19 outbreak in America was way back in mid-February, at a nursing home in Washington State.”
New Jersey Republicans pinned the nursing home death toll solely on Murphy.
New Jersey state Sen. Joe Pennacchio said, “He owns it. We were forewarned by Washington State. We were forewarned by Italy when we were told that the disease was ravaging the elderly population with the average age of death being 81.”
“I don’t know how this isn’t on Murphy. He’s the governor and he assumed dictatorial powers. He certainly didn’t ask the Legislature,” said New Jersey state Sen. Mike Doherty.
“They should have protected the elderly and those who have health conditions instead of imposing a lockdown of the population,” he added.
Breitbart News contacted New Jersey’s congressional delegation to see what it thought of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) original decision to force nursing homes to host coronavirus patients.
All Democrats, in the House and in the Senate, did not respond to Breitbart News’s request for comment.
- Cory Booker
- Bob Menendez
- Donald Norcross
- Andy Kim
- Josh Gottheimer
- Frank Pallone
- Tom Malinowski
- Albio Sires
- Bill Pascrell
- Donald Payne
- Mikie Sherrill
- Bonnie Watson Coleman
As congressional Democrats remain silent on the large loss of life in New Jersey nursing homes, state Republicans have called for action.
Pennacchio, along with Republican state Sens. Steve Oroho, Declan O’Scanlon, and Kristin Corrado, called on the state Senate to prevent another “tragedy” in New Jersey nursing homes.
Pennacchio said:
Not only were New Jersey’s long-term care facilities prevented from testing patients for COVID-19 prior to admittance, they actually were ordered by the Murphy Administration to accept patients who were known to have tested positive. It’s shocking that the commissioner didn’t realize her order was tossing a match into dry grass. The wildfire of infection that burned through our long-term care facilities after her order was nothing less than devastating.
“The souls of more than 5,400 victims of COVID-19 in our nursing and veteran homes are crying out and their families deserve to know what went wrong,” he added.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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