Gov. Ned Lamont attended a bipartisan Women’s Caucus news conference Tuesday on COVID-19 and the impact on nursing homes in Connecticut.

Lamont says the state is looking at the statistics on how COVID-19 spread through nursing homes during the pandemic.

Lamont says an outside firm is expected to begin work investigating the state Department of Public Health and nursing homes’ handling of the COVID-19 response.

The governor says all nursing home staff and residents in the state have now been tested, and will continue to be tested every week.

He says his administration will be looking into the spread of COVID-19 at nursing homes in the event there is a second wave.

"We got hit hard here in Connecticut because of our proximity to the epicenter of the pandemic, New York," Lamont says.

Rep. Michelle Cook showed a picture of her father-in-law, a resident of a nursing home, who died of COVID-19.

She is leading legislative efforts to investigate nursing home responses in the state in an independent review, which is due by August.

Cook shared the story of how her father-in-law, intimately known as "pops," was in a nursing home only a month before he died from COVID-19.

She says the nursing home denied that COVID-19 was present inside of the facility, but her father-in-law had already become sick.

She says the nursing home finally acknowledged COVID-19 had actually been detected inside the facility 19 days after her father-in-law died.

The Women’s Bipartisan Caucus says it has created a list of recommendations on keeping the state nursing homes safe for residents moving forward through the pandemic.

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