testing and therapeutic treatments to nursing homes. these facilities are suffering from an historic staffing shortage as well losing 230,000 caregivers or 15% of their workforce since the start of the pandemic. >> four million elderly are admitted to nursing homes coming from the hospitals who need rehab or finish therapy to go home. that's dropped way down and causing a backlog of people in the hospital and that's right when we need people, more beds in the hospital to take care of people getting sick from omicron. >> bill: connecticut is so desperate to free up hospital beds they're asking nursing homes to accept covid-19 positive hospitalized patients if they are able. hospitalized patients should be disxharjd from acute care whenever clinically indicated regardless of covid-19 status. critics point out that sending covid-19 positive patients to these facilities that house our most vulnerable is exactly what