The state's House majority leader has accused Gov. Tom Wolf's administration of not being transparent in its handling of virus-related deaths in nursing home and long-term care facilities.

Kerry Benninghoff, R-171st, will call for an investigation of Wolf's handling of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities under the coronavirus.

Benninghoff said he plans to refer an investigation to the House Government Oversight Committee when the House returns to session.

During a public appearance last week, Wolf was asked if he would cooperate with an inquiry into his handling of nursing homes and other senior and long-term care facilities.

“I want to be as open and transparent (as possible),” Wolf said. “If there is something we can learn from anybody taking a look at what we're doing, including the press, we'd welcome that.”

Benninghoff said nearly half of all virus-related deaths in the state are related to nursing homes.

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.Last spring, nursing homes and long-term care homes struggled to contain the virus, many lacking the trained staff, testing supplies and personal protective equipment in the early going that could have helped them slow the spread, public health experts said.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had advised nursing homes to create a plan for managing readmissions of residents who contracted the virus, as well as admissions of new residents who were infected.Nursing homes were told to place those residents in a single-person room or in a separate observation area to be monitored for evidence of the virus.The house will return to session March 15, and Benninghoff's office expects to have a scope of investigation letter to be delivered to the committee that day.“We believe Pennsylvanians deserve better from their government when they are seeking answers as to why something so tragic has occurred, and they are not getting answers,” Benninghoff said in a prepared statement. “Unfortunately, as of today, including our recent budget hearings where members directly asked the administration about this issue, Pennsylvanians and their families are left only with excuses and deflection from an administration that has been anything but transparent.”The House Government Oversight Committee is headed by Tarah Toohil, R-116th, and Matthew D. Bradford, D-70th.Benninghoff said in his announcement that Wolf “is not being transparent and cannot answer some of the most basic questions concerned families have had during this pandemic.”

Benninghoff's spokesman, Jason Gottesman, noted that under the state's policy, nursing homes had to take back patients who tested positive for the virus to help reduce overcrowding at the hospitals. But Gottesman said that overcrowding was never an issue with hospitals across the state.The Department of Health has not released data on the number of COVID-19 patients who were released back to nursing homes, or which nursing homes re- admitted such patients.Gottesman declined to specify what Benninghoff hopes to get out of the intended investigation, but he said, “There's a whole host of issues Pennsylvanians deserve answers on, and we don't want to limit the scope of that.”U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th, lauded the intended effort and also seized on the state's policy to send virus patients back to their nursing home. He called the policy negligent.“Unfortunately, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has repeatedly failed to investigate the policies that put Pennsylvania seniors living in long-term care facilities at risk,” Kelly wrote in a prepared statement. “Pennsylvanians deserve a full and transparent investigation into what went wrong.”<i>The Associated Press contributed to this report.</i>