New Jersey mayor calls for probe into nursing home with 22 deaths amid COVID-19

The mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey is calling on the state’s attorney general to investigate a nursing home that has reported 22 resident deaths since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak.

Mayor Chris Bollwage is requesting the AG’s office probe whether Elizabeth Nursing and Rehab Center is following mitigation guidance issued by the state Health Department three weeks ago when the facility reported its first five deaths.

Of the current 22 resident deaths, 12 of them have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Bollage.

“The other ten, we really don’t know whether they are gonna get tested, or we’re just going to not understand how they succumbed,” Bollwage said in a video statement he shared to Facebook.

Bollwage said the families, according to social media posts, weren’t notified by the facility about its own coronavirus outbreak.

“It is extremely disheartening for the families, and I ache for the families and residents of that nursing home,” the mayor said.

On March 22, after officials were tipped off by a nearby hospital of the alarming number patients coming from the nursing home, the state health department issued their “curriculum of mitigation” to the facility, according to Bollwage.

“The attorney general can figure out, through an investigation, if in fact, all of these issues and protocols were sustained over the last three week period,” the mayor said.

Elizabeth has seen 1,566 coronavirus cases and 37 deaths from the illness, as of Wednesday, officials said.

The nursing home did not immediately return request for comment from The Post Wednesday night.

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