Cuomo Aides Hid COVID Nursing-Home Deaths for Months: Report | National Review
The aides blocked health officials from coming clean about the true number of victims for at least five months.
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The push by New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s office to obscure the coronavirus death toll in state nursing homes was more widespread than initially thought, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
Senior aides attempted to prevent the New York State Health Department from releasing the true number of coronavirus victims in nursing homes over at least five months beginning in the spring of 2020, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Times.
For example, a draft report by the Health Department on coronavirus deaths in nursing homes identified 9,739 victims through the end of May. The draft noted that “approximately 35 percent” of all deaths in the state were among nursing home residents.
However, that draft was not released. The report released to the public claimed that just 21 percent of all coronavirus deaths in New York occurred among nursing home residents. The state only admitted publicly that 6,500 nursing home residents had died of coronavirus as late as August.
During an August legislative hearing on nursing home deaths, New York health commissioner Howard Zucker testified that the state was still attempting to gather accurate data on those deaths.
Cuomo Aides Spent Months Hiding Nursing Home Death Toll
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.
