Families of Veterans Who Died of Covid Win $53 Million Legal Settlement

The New Jersey nursing home settlement is believed to be the first of its kind nationwide

By Tracey Tully of The NY Times. Excerpts: 

"In legal filings, the families had claimed that staff members were barred from wearing masks before April 2020 to avoid scaring residents. Sick and healthy residents were allowed to congregate. And staff members moved from room to room in the nursing homes without taking proper precautions to avoid transmitting the virus."

"Deaths at long-term care centers across the state account for 30 percent of the more than 29,000 virus-related fatalities in New Jersey since the start of the pandemic.

Many people who fell ill at nursing homes died before being tested for the virus, leading to a potential undercount." 

"At New Jersey’s three state-run veterans homes, more than 200 residents died after getting sick with probable or confirmed cases of Covid-19. Two staff members also died."

"employees had testified in depositions that they were told not to wear masks after the nursing homes were closed to visitors in the middle of March 2020 to slow the spread of the virus. They were also barred from taking masks from the facility’s rationed supplies.

“We are going to start progressive discipline for mask insubordination,” a lawyer with the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs wrote on March 27, 2020, according to an email Mr. Rodriguez obtained through a records request."