Cuomo Aides Spent Months Hiding Nursing Home Death Toll

[SouthBayDem]

Source: NY Times

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 actions coincided with the period in which Mr. Cuomo was pitching and then writing a book on the pandemic, with the assistance of his top aide, Melissa DeRosa, and others.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/nyregion/cuomo-aides-nursing-home-deaths.html

[madaboutharry]

1. I don't understand the reason for not giving accurate numbers.

This story doesn’t make sense to me. What would be the purpose of hiding the numbers? Why would the actual death toll reflect poorly on any governor trying his or her best to deal with a tragic crisis?

[Celerity]

2. The number of nursing home residents who died in the pandemic has been a particularly sensitive

question for the Cuomo administration.

As the first wave hit New York in March 2020, the administration put in place a policy to prevent nursing homes from turning away patients discharged from hospitals after treatment for Covid-19. Some critics blamed the approach for the large number of resident deaths in the spring, a toll that the administration then put at around 6,000.

But by the time the policy was rescinded less than two months later, it had become clear that not all the deaths were being included in that tally: Those who died after being transferred to hospitals were not counted as nursing home deaths. Lawmakers and others began asking for a complete count of all resident deaths, but the governor’s aides said parsing the numbers was difficult because of a fear of double counting, among other possible errors.

The full data on nursing home deaths was not released until this year, after a report by the state attorney general in late January found that the official tally might have undercounted the true toll by as much as 50 percent. That was something Mr. Cuomo’s aides had known since the previous spring, The New York Times found.

[eilen]

3. I know, I don't understand why the cover up?

We knew it was a deadly pandemic. It was inevitable that mistakes and misjudgments would occur dealing with something this novel.

[disndat]

5. Most likely a cover-up.

we have to wait for A.G. Letitia James' investigation and report.

[OneCrazyDiamond]

4. Has there been any evidence this came from The Governor?

I mean it could have been the aid's decision alone thinking they were protecting him from Asshat's administration.

[ripcord]

6. This part really bothers me

"The final version of the report, which The Times has reported was rewritten several times by senior advisers to Mr. Cuomo and published in early July, emphasized that admissions from hospitals “were not a driver of nursing home infections or fatalities.” Instead, the report contained the lower death count and cited staff as the most likely source of infections."

If this is true it was wrong, political aides should never rewrite reports submitted by health officials.

[IbogaProject]

7. The Nursing Home industry was a huge Cuomo Donor

Because the Nursing Home industry was a huge Cuomo Donor it it may have influenced him to try to stop the evacuation by family members by hiding the death toll through delaying the reporting. He isn't a nice guy. He went to the same High School as Trump.