(Headline USA) Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s administration scrubbed a controversial COVID-era policy from its website as the vice presidential candidate faces increased scrutiny for his handling of the pandemic.
During the pandemic, Walz was one of several governors who passed an order stating that patients with COVID should be admitted into nursing homes after being discharged from hospitals.
“Patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 who still require transmission-based precautions for COVID-19 can be transferred to congregate living facilities,” read the policy, according to Fox News.
Walz’s administration also encouraged families not to take their loved ones out of nursing homes, which quickly became COVID-19 breeding grounds.
“[Minnesoda Department of Health] strongly recommends against families bringing residents of long-term care facilities to their homes during this time,” said the MDH official guidance. “This recommendation applies whether residents have previously been diagnosed with COVID-19 or have recently tested negative for COVID-19.”
Walz defended the policy even after COVID deaths in long-term facilities began to spike.
“This was what everyone was doing,” he said in 2020. “This was not a mistake. It wasn’t like no one thought about this. There was complexity in how you deal with this.”
Now, however, it appears Walz is trying to cover up his role in the COVID deaths of elderly Minnesotans.
According to Fox News, the policy he once defended has been removed from his administration’s website and is only accessible via the Wayback Machine.
The scandal is reminiscent of Democrats’ attack ads on then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney and then-vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., the latter of whom was accused of trying to “kill” the elderly in his efforts to repeal Obamacare.
Through their own COVID governance, however, Democrats oversaw the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home patients in states such as Walz’s Minnesota, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s California, Gov. Phil Murphy’s New Jersey, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s New York and former Gov. Tom Wolf’s Pennsylvania.
