Whitmer COVID-19 program shares private health data with Democrat allies and candidates
Under the guise of helping COVID-19 mitigation efforts, a Whitmer administration scheme collects confidential personal medical information of Michigan citizens and shares it with Democrat candidates.
The scheme was discovered when Livingston County Commissioner Wes Nakagiri (R) volunteered to perform COVID-19 contact tracing for the State of Michigan. Contact tracing is a technique used to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. When performing contact tracing, volunteers are assigned to assist Public Health officials in reaching out to citizens who have come into contact with someone who has been diagnosed with the coronavirus. The volunteers make phone calls to convey important instructions to citizens who have a higher likelihood of contracting the coronavirus. Additionally, volunteers could ask personal questions such as: How is your health now? Do you have shortness of breath? Do you have abdominal pain? Can you tell me the names and ages of persons living in your household? What is your email address? The volunteers then log the results of these phone calls into a database ostensibly for use by medical professionals.
While reading through training materials, Nakagiri observed that the Whitmer Administration selected NGP VAN to help facilitate this volunteer effort. NGP VAN provides the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) with phone and database services to retrieve and store contact tracing information. NGP VAN is primarily known for providing phone and database services for Democrat political campaigns. The NGP VAN website states: “NGP VAN is the leading technology provider to Democratic and progressive campaigns . . .”
According to training documents, confidential medical information gained from contact tracing is entered into the NGP VAN database. Nakagiri said, “This enables NGP VAN to share this confidential information with both the MDHHS and Democrat candidates. This scheme is an insidiously clever and deceitful way to take political advantage of the biggest public health crisis of our lifetimes. Providing confidential information collected from contact tracing to Democrat candidates is an egregious violation of the public trust.”
Nakagiri went on to point out, “State taxpayer dollars are funding a scheme which benefits Democrat candidates while degrading citizen trust in our public health process.” He also stated, “While researching this matter I observed a bi-partisan company which would provide free phone and database service to an organization providing emergency response to COVID-19. But, ultimately the best way to protect confidential medical information is to bypass a third-party database and enter it directly into the existing Michigan Disease Surveillance System (MDSS database).”
“It is an outrage that the Whitmer Administration would orchestrate a scheme which takes advantage of humanitarian volunteers and vulnerable citizens while eroding trust in our public health system. She needs to focus more time on resolving the COVID-19 crisis, and less time on seeking political gain.”
A copy of the training documents for contact tracing volunteers is included as an attachment. An index of the most relevant slides is shown below.
Slide 17: Volunteers are instructed to state, “Just so you know everything we talk about is confidential.”
Slide 19: Volunteers are instructed to ask for the person’s email address.
Slide 22: Contains examples of health-related questions that could be asked by the volunteer.
Slide 38: Shows the phone bank software is “Powered by NGP VAN”
Slide 38: Shows Open VPB (Open Virtual Phone Bank) is used to make calls. Open VPB is part of NGP VAN.
https://www.openvpb.com/VirtualPhoneBank/
https://accounts.ngpvan.com/oidc/login?signin=611b955bccdd91f31d086f923b610f77
Slide 45: Shows the State of Michigan has contracted with Kolehouse Strategies, another Democrat-aligned political entity, to organize contact tracing.
Link to MDHHS training document
Note: The information above is being sent to media outlets as a press release. The best way to stop this scheme is through public pressure and media scrutiny.