U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) highlighted the State of Indiana’s efforts to protect nursing home residents from COVID-19 even as other states endangered vulnerable populations by requiring long-term care facilities to accept COVID-19 patients. Nursing home residents make up only 0.6 percent of the U.S. population, but account for 42 percent of American deaths from coronavirus.
“States should be coordinating and learning best practices from each other,” Congresswoman Walorski said. “In my home state of Indiana, the governor developed strike teams to dispatch medical experts to assist facilities with containment and logistics, including separating positive patients from the general population. The overwhelming evidence makes clear that just about the worst possible thing anyone can do is to knowingly introduce coronavirus into a nursing home. And yet, that was essentially the policy of states like New York, New Jersey, and Michigan, which mandated that nursing homes admit patients who tested positive for coronavirus. Such an abject failure of policy should invite tough questions for those policymakers.”
