Yeah, I don't understand that policy at all. It's either ignorant or utter incompetence. I don't know who's behind the decision making. But whoever made that decision needs to be fired.
I'm not a fan of the policy either, but my understanding is at the time it started the hospitals were overwhelmed and the idea was you couldn't allow nursing homes to force them out into an already overwhelmed hospital system. It was better to quarantine them in the nursing home. I'm not defending the decision, obviously it was a bad call, but that was the Department of Health's thought process.
I tend to not try and micro-analyze every decision a leader makes in a crisis. It's never going to be perfect. You'll have hits and misses. I judge more by competence, knowledge, messaging, intent, and overall win/loss. If a head coach is 12-4 you don't say he had a bad season. You understand it's hard to win games in the NFL and if you are winning most of them while keeping the confidence of players and fans you're doing good. A public crisis is much the same, except sadly lives are usually lost instead of games. Still, if you win/save more than you lose while keeping the confidence of the public and officials/first responders you're probably doing a pretty good job.
Probably a terrible analogy, but it's the best one I've got. :hihi: