Two Republican state senators attacked Gov. Phil Murphy over a renewed wave of deaths at the state’s long-term care facilities Monday.
“It’s beyond shameful how our nursing homes and veterans homes continue to be victimized by the Murphy administration,” State Sen. Kristin Corrado (R-Totowa) said. “After the administration missed a federal deadline that delayed the beginning of vaccinations in our nursing homes by a week, we’re now learning that most of the State’s allotment of the vaccine continues to sit unused. It’s utter incompetence.”
As of Monday, the state’s federally-run vaccination program reported using roughly 8,000 of the 120,000 doses it reserved for long-term care center residents, though reporting delays may have skewed those figures somewhat and that pace is expected to amp up in the coming days as officials continue their vaccination efforts.
They expect to be through with long-term care vaccinations by the end of the month. But for Corrado and State Sen. Joe Pennacchio (R-Montville), it may be too little too late.
“More than 300 seniors died in facilities in December alone, more than the previous three months combined,” Pennacchio said. “The Administration has clearly failed to learn from its mistakes – mistakes that contributed to the loss of more than 7,500 virus victims.”
The long-term care deaths — they account for more than a third of the state’s virus deaths — have long drawn Republican criticisms of Murphy, and those criticisms haven’t abated as the country begins to move through vaccinations.
In fact, those attacks redoubled as the Republican gubernatorial primary began in earnest, but Pennacchio and other GOP members in the chamber have long called for an investigation into the handling of the virus at the state’s nursing homes.
“The pandemic is more important than political gamesmanship, and the recent numbers make it crystal clear,” Pennacchio said. “The people sent us to Trenton to do a job, and it is time for the Senate to investigate the way the State has handled the COVID outbreak.”