Tag: Jesse McKinley

Cuomo Aides Spent Months Hiding Nursing Home Death Toll

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/nyregion/cuomo-aides-nursing-home-deaths.html?smid=tw-share

Excerpt:

Aides to the New York governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, repeatedly prevented state health officials from releasing the number of nursing home deaths in the pandemic.

The effort by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office to obscure the pandemic death toll in New York nursing homes was far greater than previously known, with aides repeatedly overruling state health officials over a span of at least five months, according to interviews and newly unearthed documents.

Mr. Cuomo’s most senior aides engaged in a sustained effort to prevent the state’s own health officials, including the commissioner, Howard Zucker, from releasing the true death toll to the public or sharing it with state lawmakers, these interviews and documents showed.

A scientific paper, which incorporated the data, was never published. An audit of the numbers by a top Cuomo aide was finished months before it became publicly known. Two letters, drafted by the Health Department and meant for state legislators, were never sent.

….

The Cuomo administration’s handling of nursing home death data now is the subject of a federal investigation, one of at least four overlapping inquiries into the governor and his administration. As of this month, more than 15,500 nursing home residents with Covid-19 have died.

Author(s): Goodman, J David; Mckinley, Jesse; Hakim, Danny.

Publication Date: 28 April 2021

Publication Site: New York Times

Cuomo Accepts Some Blame in Nursing Home Scandal but Denies Cover-Up

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/nyregion/cuomo-nursing-homes.html

Excerpt:

More than 15,000 people have died from the coronavirus in New York’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities. But as recently as late January, the state was reporting only about 8,500 fatalities, excluding virus-related deaths that occurred physically outside of those facilities, such as in hospitals.

About two weeks ago, the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, accused the Cuomo administration of severely undercounting those deaths connected to nursing homes. Hours later, the state updated those numbers, adding thousands of deaths to the official tally. Since then, a court order has resulted in more updates, further increasing the number of deaths.

Ms. James’s assertion of an undercount of total deaths of nursing home residents fueled accusations that the Cuomo administration may have artificially depressed the number of those deaths to try to deflect blame for a policy set early in the pandemic: sending nursing home residents who had been hospitalized with the coronavirus back to the nursing homes.

The governor has said the state was following federal guidelines in returning the residents and trying to increase hospital capacity, assertions that he repeated on Monday, while also denying any suggestion that he was making any decision because of political calculations. “These decisions are not political decisions,” he said.

Author(s): Jesse McKinley

Publication Date: 15 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Times

New Allegations of Cover-Up by Cuomo Over Nursing Home Virus Toll

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/nyregion/new-york-nursing-homes-cuomo.html

Excerpt:

In a conversation first reported on by the New York Post, DeRosa told a group of top lawmakers Wednesday during a call to address the nursing home situation that “basically, we froze,” after being asked over the summer for information by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice.

At the time, the governor’s office was simultaneously facing requests from the state Legislature for similar information.

“We were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, and what we start saying, was going to be used against us, and we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation,” DeRosa told lawmakers, according to a partial transcript obtained by The New York Times.

Author(s): McKinley, Jesse; Ferré-Sadurní, Luis.

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Times