New Jersey quickly became the epicenter of the COVID 19 pandemic in the US with cases surging here in March of 2020.

It didn't take long though for the spotlight to turn to the Murphy administration's response to the viral outbreak.

And the criticism soon started, prompting calls for an investigation which Governor Murphy himself promised to launch immediately.

Well, nearly four years later, no such report has materialized, although the process has begun.

Health care writer Lilo Stainton recently took a look at the latest on that investigation.

And she's here with us now to explain that.

So, Lilo great to talk to you as always.

The process of this investigation has begun, although it's been a lot slower than people expected.

Or hoped.

What can you tell us about it?

Yeah, I mean, Governor Murphy announced sort of late last year it was November 22 when he said he would start this process and remind to keep in mind that everybody this is something he has been talking about since very early in the pandemic, like March or April of 20.

20.

Right.

So it's been something that everybody kept asking, where is this?

Where is this just started last year.

It appears from the contracts that, you know, at least the attorney, Paul Zoubek was up and working right away in November.

It took a little longer to get the contract signed for the Boston Consulting Group.

But you know, I was told that they were doing work all along and but but the process continues and now it looks like we'll have a report by March of next year.

And you just referenced the attorney and the consulting group that's going to be collaborating with the attorney on this investigation.

Right.

Your reporting raised an interesting comparison of this report to the Chris Christie Bridgegate investigation, where the state spent $8 million on that.

And in the end, it cleared the governor, cleared then Governor Chris Christie.

Is there skepticism around the outcome of this report, especially in light of that?

Yes.

I mean, I think there's tons of skepticism and not even because of that report.

Right just because of the fact that government investigating itself always raises eyebrows.

Governor Murphy has really stressed that this is an independent review it's outside, it's not know not being done by the government.

And, you know, Mr. Zoubek is said that, you know, he's working on it on independently.

So we can only take their word at it.

I think, you know, as far as the comparison on the cost, I thought it was interesting in Chris Christie's case, that the lawyer's blended rate was actually $650.

In this case, the blended rate is 400, which when you talk about High-Priced lawyers, that's actually kind of a good deal.

So, you know, there is that.

So, yeah, the I guess the expected cost is 3.7 million.

That's what they've spent so far.

So and I you know, they're I did some quick math.

I mean, you know, if you do some averaging, it's a lot of hours of work already.

But my understanding is they have more to do.

You know, public health people, for example, in local public health, people were saying that they hadn't really been contacted.

My understanding is now they have been contacted and they're going to have a meeting with Mr. Zoubek in in January.

So they have plenty more people to still interview.

Just looking at that cost a bit further, is this something that's actually going to be added to the state budget?

Is this going through appropriations?

How is this being handled in terms of overall costs?

Great question.

And I don't know the answer to that.

None of this cost was sort of planned for.

There was no there was no public RFP process or review process.

I'm pretty sure as an emergency they didn't have to.

So that's a big TBD we just don't know.

When we look at the timing of this.

Right.

It was delayed several years really now.

And some might have speculated that that was because the governor wanted to get through maybe a legislative election.

Now we see Tammy Murphy up for the US Senate.

Do you anticipate do you expect any delays of this report until maybe she's further along Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting question.

I nobody's mentioned that to me, but I do think her husband has been attacked by, you know, people on both both political parties and across the spectrum for the state's response to nursing homes.

And that if if there's bad news in the report, it isn't necessarily good news for her campaign.

So, you know, we'll see.

Yeah.

Could be that's been one of the biggest points of criticism against her.

Absolutely.

End up being very damaging to our campaign.

Yeah, exactly.

Great insight, as always.

Lilo Stainton, thanks for being here.

Thank you.

Joanna.