Covid-19 Oversight News: The Pandemic in Nursing Homes, Relief for Renters, and Cases Among Secret Service Officers

American Oversight’s Covid-19 Oversight Hub provides news and policy resources to help you keep track of investigations into the government’s pandemic response. The project brings together a public documents database, an oversight tracker of important ongoing investigations and litigation, regular news updates, and deeper dives into key issues.

For the latest news on the pandemic, as well as updates on various oversight investigations, sign up for our weekly Covid-19 Oversight News email.

Congressional Hearings

• Wed., June 30: The House Oversight and Reform Committee will hold a hearing to discuss information technology infrastructure in state and local governments after the pandemic.
• Thurs., July 1: The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis will hold a hearing about overcoming coronavirus vaccine hesitancy.

150 Million Vaccinated
More than 150 million Americans are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, still short of the Biden administration’s goal of vaccinating 70 percent of all adults by July 4. A recent analysis by the Associated Press found that since May, nearly all Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. were among unvaccinated people, with fully vaccinated people accounting for only 0.1 percent of hospitalizations. With the spread of the more contagious Delta variant posing an additional risk to unvaccinated people, the administration is recruiting celebrities and community organizers across the country to persuade Americans to get their shot.

The Pandemic’s Toll in Nursing Homes
A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general found that deaths in nursing homes increased by 32 percent last year. According to the findings, about 4 in 10 Medicare recipients in nursing homes had or likely had Covid-19 in 2020. Deaths jumped by nearly 170,000 from 2019, with the two largest spikes occurring in April and December 2020.

In the States

• California legislators are planning a $5.2 billion relief program that would pay all of the unpaid rent accrued by lower-income Californians during the pandemic. The state is also proposing to spend billions paying unpaid water and electricity bills, as well as providing stimulus checks that would be sent directly to millions of residents.
• More than 150 workers at Houston Methodist, a hospital system in Texas, resigned or were fired last week after refusing to comply with the hospital’s vaccine mandate. Houston Methodist was one of the first systems in the country to require the coronavirus shots, and its policy was upheld by a federal judge.
• On Saturday, the Celebrity Edge cruise ship set sail out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, becoming the first to restart operations from the U.S. since the pandemic halted the cruise industry last year.

Renters and Homeowners in the Pandemic
Last week, the Biden administration extended the nationwide eviction and foreclosure bans until July 31, amid concerns that millions of renters would be left struggling when the bans expired at the end of June. According to a recent survey by the Census Bureau, more than 6 million renter households are behind on rent.

The extension came as a new report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies highlighted the millions of homeowners and renters who face potential eviction or foreclosure. In early 2021, 14 percent of all renter households were behind on their rent. The report also noted racial disparities: 29 percent of Black renters, 21 percent of Hispanic renters, and 18 percent of Asian renters were behind on rent, as compared with 11 percent of white renters.

In the Documents
Since March 2020, more than 90,000 workers in the meat- and food-processing industry have tested positive for Covid-19. Meatpacking workers handle meat at a fast pace, forcing them to stand close together and putting them at higher risk for contracting the virus. American Oversight has obtained documents that contain an initial report from the Trump administration’s Food Supply Chain Task Force from March 27, 2020. The task force analyzed the impact of limited supplies of personal protective equipment, noting that PPE shortages could result in food supply chain disruptions of milk, produce, poultry, and dry goods. Previously, American Oversight published documents showing that the meat industry used its high level of influence within the Trump administration to push for plants to quickly reopen last spring, as well as for the lifting of certain safety regulations in poultry plants.

Covid-19 Among Federal Employees

• Covid-19 in the Secret Service: The U.S. Secret Service has said that nearly 900 employees tested positive for Covid-19 in the 12 months since March 1, 2020. The agency released this information after watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington obtained records showing that 881 active Secret Service employees had contracted the virus.
• Covid-19 in the Federal Air Marshal Service: The Government Accountability Office examined the steps that the U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) took to protect marshals’ health during the pandemic. The GAO found that FAMS provided its employees with N95 masks and implemented new telework and leave policies, but did not routinely facilitate employee access to coronavirus testing. By January 2021, FAMS had reported 345 cases of Covid-19 among employees.

Congress Expands Investigation
The House Oversight Committee and the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis expanded their investigation into Emergent BioSolutions, the operator of a Maryland vaccine-making plant that ruined millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses. The committees wrote to the CEOs of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, both of which had manufacturing contracts with Emergent even though multiple audits and inspections had identified deficiencies at the Baltimore facility. Initial findings from the committees’ investigation have shown that Emergent officials were aware of quality issues at the plant prior to vaccine production.

Congressional Oversight

• The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee announced three new areas of bipartisan oversight: identifying the greatest barriers to vaccination among underserved communities; assessing the causes of supply shortages within the Strategic National Stockpile; and reviewing information about the origin of Covid-19.
• Homeowner Protections: The Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee urged Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Dave Uejio to put in place better protections for homeowners who could lose their homes to foreclosure. Sens. Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren asked CFPB to establish protections for homeowners exiting coronavirus-related forbearance to ensure fair treatment for all homeowners.
• Pause on Federal Student Loan Payments: A bicameral group of Democrats asked President Biden to extend the current pause on payments and interest for federally held student loans. The members noted that even before the pandemic, roughly 1 million student loan borrowers were defaulting on their loans every year.
• Maternal Mortality Crisis: A bicameral group of Democrats wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer asking them to include policies to end the country’s maternal mortality crisis and eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health outcomes in the next coronavirus relief package.