HARRISBURG — Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania on Thursday used a hearing to ask Gov. Tom Wolf’s top health official whether it was a mistake to order COVID-19 patients to be readmitted to nursing homes, although it is not clear the policy led to an outbreak or death.

Since Pennsylvania’s first coronavirus spike in cases last spring, Republicans have accused Wolf’s administration of fueling the outbreak in nursing homes by ordering the facilities to readmit residents who had been treated for the virus in a hospital.

Despite a high number of nursing home deaths in Pennsylvania, no investigation has thus far pointed to the policy as a cause of death or outbreak. Meanwhile, nursing home trade associations in Pennsylvania say they are not aware of a nursing home that was forced to accept a COVID-positive patient against its will, or that the order led to death or an outbreak.

Pennsylvania is the most populous of about a dozen states where coronavirus-related deaths in long-term care facilities account for 50% or higher of the total coronavirus-related deaths, according to data assembled by the COVID Tracking Project through last week.