State health director: No reason or incentive to try to hide deaths
30 percent of confirmed COVID-19 deaths tied to nursing homes
Elizabeth Hertel
LANSING Michigan s top health official said Thursday that nursing homes are accurately reporting the number of coronavirus-related deaths, amid questions over whether the tally is low.
Elizabeth Hertel, director of the state Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers that the facilities have no reason or incentive to try to hide deaths. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee held the hearing after Detroit-area journalist Charlie LeDuff and the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, which had sued for records, questioned if there is an undercount after noting that the state in the early months of the pandemic traced 648 of 1,468 COVID-19 deaths identified through vital records reviews to nursing homes.
MDHHS Director Says Long-Term Care Facility COVID-19 Death Counts Are Accurate
June 3, 2021
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services director Elizabeth Hertel told state lawmakers Thursday that long-term care facilities have been accurately reporting the number of coronavirus-related deaths.
Hertel spoke before a Republican-led House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday after a Detroit-area journalist and the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation sued for records and questioned if there has been an undercount of coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
Michigan has reported 5,663 long-term care residents and 77 staff have died from the coronavirus. That numbers accounts for 30% of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Michigan.
There is a possibility the state of
Michigan has been undercounting coronavirus-related nursing home deaths, according to lawyers at the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation.
The Mackinac Center announced last week that the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) agreed to a settlement with the foundation s client, Detriot journalist Charlie LeDuff, after the department failed to provide LeDuff with public records he requested in January under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) related to nursing home deaths. This data is an essential part of accurately understanding the effects of this pandemic and the public policy implemented in response, Steve Delie, an attorney and the Mackinac Center’s FOIA expert, said in a May 21 statement. It also leaves open the possibility that the state is undercounting the number of deaths of those in nursing homes.