DETROIT – There is no standard policy for reporting how many COVID-related deaths have occurred in Michigan nursing home facilities. Gretchen Whitmer’s policies as they are related to nursing home deaths. READ: Michigan AG looks into requests to investigate state nursing home policyMany families are simply left lost and alone as they search for answers to what happened to their loved ones. Whitmer stands by COVID nursing home policy amid threats of legal actionSen. Jim Runestad is one of the lawmakers demanding answers from Whitmer’s office about nursing home deaths during the pandemic. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office is looking into requests to investigate the state’s COVID-19 nursing home policy.

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. – Macomb County prosecutor and former Michigan House Rep. Pete Lucido said his office is flooded with calls from families who said their perfectly-health loved-ones died in nursing homes. READ: Michigan AG looks into requests to investigate state nursing home policyHe said they’ve told him they are unable to get any answers from nursing homes or from the state about what has happened. Some believe their deaths may have been connected to a nursing home policy put in place by Gov. Initially, patients who tested positive for COVID were placed in the same facility with patients who did not have COVID. The report, released by the Center for Health and Research Transformation (CHRT), evaluated the state’s regional nursing home hub strategy, comparing the approach to outcomes in other states.

Gretchen Whitmer has faced criticism over a nursing home policy that her administration put in place in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, patients who tested positive for COVID were placed in the same facility with patients who did not have COVID. READ: Michigan AG looks into requests to investigate state nursing home policyAdWhitmer’s policy differed from New York Gov. The most current count puts the long-term care death count at 5,537 in Michigan, which is more than 35 percent of all of the state’s COVID deaths. I think that it sometimes can be a fool’s errand because the way that we are congregating data varies from state to state,” Whitmer said.