HARRISBURG, Pa. - Doug Mastriano, Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for governor, has made a campaign staple out of the allegation that Democratic Gov.
Tom Wolf's policy of readmitting COVID-19 patients from hospitals to nursing homes caused thousands of deaths — a baseless claim for which no investigator or researcher has provided any evidence.In fact, layers of inspections by researchers have pointed to entirely something different — nursing home employees ushering in the virus every day — while investigators found administrators flouting staffing requirements or infection-control procedures.Further, no Pennsylvania nursing home has leveled any such claim like Mastriano's, and a national nursing home trade association has agreed with the findings of researchers who say the spread of the virus in nursing homes directly correlated to community spread.Regardless, Mastriano has repeated the unfounded claim in front of friendly audiences, weaponizing COVID-19 in an effort to hurt Democrats in one of the nation’s most important governor’s races in this midterm election cycle.Mastriano, a state senator and retired U.S.