The nomination of Dr. Rachel Levine for assistant secretary for Health and Human Services is under renewed fire from Republicans, who are asking why data on COVID-19 cases and deaths in nursing homes is missing from weekly reports issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Health while Levine was secretary of the agency.
The reports have been missing the data for at least 100 nursing homes since the department began issuing the reports last May. In at least one case, the missing data obscured a deadly coronavirus outbreak.
Levine has also been criticized for her March 2020 decision as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health to require nursing homes to admit patients discharged from the hospital even if they had been hospitalized for COVID-19.
