For Murphy and Cuomo, questions persist over decision to readmit nursing home residents. Here’s what happened.

The conversation was tense.

New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli began the March 31 conference call with hundreds of long-term care facility operators explaining they were expected to allow nursing home patients recovering from COVID-19 to return from the hospital.

But while she made it clear that they would be required to assign separate staff and separate them from other residents — or to let the state know right away if that was not possible — the exasperation on the other end of the phone was palpable.

“Patients will die,” an unidentified administrator declared, according to a…