GREG MARKKANEN

As COVID-19 impacted Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her administration issued numerous executive orders and health directives. These decisions impacted lives and livelihoods throughout the U.P. and the state — and the best way for decision-makers to see how plans are working is to have the most complete data possible in real-time.

One controversial executive order placed patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 into long-term care facilities within vulnerable populations where the virus was not present. I have disagreed strongly with that decision to this day based on the data and science that was available. One of the first major outbreaks of COVID-19 was a nursing home in Washington, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined quickly after that once the virus is introduced in a long-term care skilled nursing facility, rapid transmission can occur.

These types of red flags did not stop Gov. Whitmer from this order, and new information has offered a clearer picture of how harshly COVID-19 has affected our long-term care facilities.

An independent, non-partisan report from the state’s Auditor General published Monday found 8,061 COVID-19 deaths linked to long-term care facilities as of July 2021. This amount is 42% higher than the 5,675 deaths that had been counted by Gov. Whitmer’s administration at the time.

In only facilities that were required to report deaths to the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, the Auditor General found 7,010 deaths — which still represents a total that is 24% higher than what the department had been counting.

Overall, the numbers DHHS have for COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities is 30% lower than what the Auditor General found.

This is a significant difference — and one that could have shaped a better strategy for our most vulnerable if more effort had been made to get more accurate numbers. In a recent joint House-Senate Oversight Committee hearing, DHHS downplayed and disputed this difference. The department’s director stated they only had information to go on from long-term care facilities that were reporting and trusted those numbers when they provided them to the public.

That’s government-speak for doing the absolute bare minimum. And the blunt solution is to pick up the phone and call a few people. The Auditor General managed to identify 923 deaths from facilities that were not required to self-report COVID-19 deaths to the department. A number that high going virtually unnoticed by the administration – and little attempt being made to verify numbers that were available for public consumption — is staggering. The department’s attempts to discredit the review was yet another case of how the governor and her agencies have operated during this pandemic: follow the data when it suits you and flush it when it refutes you.

I supported this independent review because it was important for people in the U.P. and in our communities to get the unfiltered truth. The past two years, many people throughout the state with friends and loved ones in long-term care facilities have been scared about COVID-19’s impacts. They deserve to know their state government is operating in an honest, informed and extremely diligent fashion as it works to protect health and safety. I believe this review shows Gov. Whitmer and her administration fell short in this instance.

State Rep. Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock, is serving his second term in the Michigan House representing residents of Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton, Iron, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties, as well as Powell and Ishpeming townships in Marquette County.