Top Michigan official: Nursing home death data is accurate

LANSING (AP) — Michigan's top health official says that long-term care facilities are accurately reporting the number of coronavirus-related deaths, amid questions over whether the tally is low.

Elizabeth Hertel, director of the state Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers that nursing homes have no “reason or incentive to try to hide” deaths. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee held the hearing after Detroit-area journalist Charlie LeDuff and the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, which had sued for records, questioned if there is an undercount after noting that the state in the early months of the pandemic traced 648 of 1,468 COVID-19 deaths identified through vital records reviews to nursing homes.

Hertel called “untrue” the contention that deaths found by analyzing death certificates may not be reflected in data submitted by nursing homes, homes for the aged and adult foster care facilities.

“If it is identified in the death certificate as a nursing home death, it would have been reported by the nursing homes as a nursing home death as well. You can't add them together. ... You're double counting,” she said.

Michigan says 5,663 long-term care residents and 77 staff have died, accounting for 30% of 19,200 confirmed COVID-19 deaths.