The Justice Department on Wednesday sent letters to the governors of New York and three other Democratic-led states, seeking data on whether they violated federal law by ordering public nursing homes to accept recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals.

Prosecutors said the fact-finding letters also sent to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan were aimed at determining whether the orders “may have resulted in the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home residents.”

The New York order issued March 25, for example, specifically told homes they could not refuse to accept recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals as long as the patients were “medically stable.” The order barred homes from even testing such patients to see if they still had the virus. Some homes said they feared they would lose their licenses if they didn’t comply.

Long-term care facilities represent less than 1% of the U.S. population, but they account for 42% of the COVID-19 deaths, with more than 70,000 fatalities reported by the COVID Tracking Project.

The Justice Department said that hospital patients were sent “often without adequate testing” to ensure they would not spread the virus to residents. It also cited federal data showing New York, with nearly 32,600 dead, leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths, and is second only to New Jersey in the number of deaths per population.

The Justice Department’s civil rights division said it is evaluating whether to initiate investigations under a federal law called the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act that protects the rights of people in nursing homes and other facilities.

It is now more or less clear that same strategy had been used in Italy and US to kill tens of thousands of old people, as it had been good for narrative at the time and also allowed certain people to get hold of money that went of their support.