New Jersey’s Covid-19 long term care deaths have been the subject of lawsuits and a federal civil rights probe.
Four years after the pandemic began, the most disturbing aspect of the government response got a whole lot darker. Senator Joe Pennacchio (R-26) – who last week released a rebuttal to the Murphy Administration’s “independent” post-mortem report of the state’s handling of the pandemic, is now demanding that the NJ Department of Health explain a 6,779 COVID death discrepancy between the NJ DOH COVID Dashboard and the Montgomery McCracken law firm’s aforementioned $9 million report.
“The Montgomery McCracken review is creating more questions than it is answers to Governor Murphy’s COVID response and we do not know who to believe,” said Pennacchio on Tuesday. “We are seeing enormous discrepancies between what the NJ DOH is telling us and what the Montgomery McCracken review is telling us.”
The NJ DOH COVID Dashboard confirms 9,221 COVID deaths in the long term care facilities in the Garden State.
Pennacchio notes, however, that page 617 of the Montgomery McCracken report claims “more than 16,000 residents and many staff members in New Jersey’s LTCF’s have died from Covid-19.”
“The people of New Jersey deserve to have the correct information from this devastating pandemic,” continued Pennacchio. “The DOH must immediately explain this discrepancy and ensure the accurate numbers are reported so we can understand exactly what went wrong and how we can better prepare for future crises.”
