National Review’s excellent Jim Geraghty has written a valuable column on how unfortunate state policies in a handful of blue states have added fuel to the fire that is Covid-19. The states’ concern was acute care hospitals becoming overloaded with desperately ill coronavirus patients.
A number of states therefore required nursing homes to accept or readmit patients with still-active cases of the disease. This exposed residents and staff to the disease while ignoring that such facilities are neither trained or equipped to isolate the contagious.
The result has been a disaster for both elderly residents and staff. Nursing home residents and staff have done a disproportionately large share of the dying attributed to this pandemic.
It turns out that governors like Cuomo, Pritzker, and Newsom have a lot of deaths to answer for. Other states like Florida have had policies that specifically banned what NY and NJ specifically required.
As the “laboratory of democracy” the states have tried different policies with differing results. Those trying policies that spawned tragedies will have to shoulder the blame for “choosing poorly.”
