Cuomo Advisers Amended Report on Covid-19 Nursing Institutional Deaths

The changes that Mr. Cuomo’s associates and health officials added to the report on the nursing home, which has not been released before, showing that the state already had a fuller record of deaths outside nursing homes this summer. The health department resisted calls by state and federal media lawmakers, and others to release the data for another eight months.

Government officials now say more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have been confirmed or presumably died of Covid-19 since March last year, counting those who died in long-term care facilities. who later died in hospitals. This figure is about 50% higher than earlier official death tolls.

Mr. Cuomo is now facing increasing political pressure over the administration of his pandemic in nursing homes as well as accusations that he sexually harassed two former staff members. Republicans and some Democrats have called on the governor to resign or be sued in court.

Mr. Cuomo declined calls for his resignation and apologized for his behavior. As for the deaths in nursing homes, Mr. Cuomo said his government followed federal leadership and acted to maintain hospital capacity.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn asked the Cuomo government in February for information on deaths in nursing homes, reports The Wall Street Journal. Federal prosecutors have expressed interest in the July report, people familiar with the case said.

In response to questions from the Journal, administrative officials said Thursday that Cuomo’s advisers are working to include data on deaths outside the facility because they are concerned about its accuracy.

“The data outside the facility was omitted after DOH could not confirm that it had been adequately verified,” Beth Garvey, Cuomo’s special adviser and senior adviser, said in a statement.

One official familiar with the back-and-forth between the health department and Mr. Cuomo’s advisers said State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker agreed that the information outside the facility should not be included in the report.

‘[The Department of Health] was comfortable with the final report and fully believes in its conclusion that the primary manager that Covid introduced in the nursing homes was brought in by staff, ”said Gary Holmes, a spokesman for the health department.

The health department updated the report on February 11 to include deaths outside nursing facilities outside the facility, saying its conclusions remain unchanged by the new data.

State legislators from both parties said the death rate outside the facility was critical for them to evaluate nursing home policies that could prevent future deaths. They said the Cuomo government’s decision to postpone its release was a cover-up of data that the governor knew would damage his political stature.

Melissa DeRosa, mr. Cuomo’s top aide explained the delay to state lawmakers at a Feb. 10 meeting. She said the state had dropped a legislative request for the data due to an investigation into the U.S. Department of Justice. According to DeRosa, the state is concerned that the information would be politicized by the government of former President Donald Trump, according to a transcript.

The Department of Justice, through its Civil Rights Division, began in August to request information on deaths in nursing homes in New York and other Democratic states.

The initial report from July was the result of a study by the Department of Health on the factors that contributed to the death toll in nursing homes. The agency undertook the study in response to complaints from state legislators and people who have lost loved ones that a March 25 order to promote the spread of the virus among members of the state’s most vulnerable population.

According to the directive, no nursing home may refuse to readmit residents or admit new residents from hospitals, solely because of a Covid-19 diagnosis.

The July report concluded that nursing homes were already full of the virus by the March 25 policy and attributed the spread to staff who took it to work.

Several of the top advisers of mr. Cuomo – who was a member of his Covid-19 task force – had previously reviewed the report and requested changes.

They have me. DeRosa included; Dr. Zucker; Jim Malatras, a longtime adviser appointed Chancellor of the New York Public College System in August; and Linda Lacewell, the superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services.

The lead author of the report was Eleanor Adams, who until August worked in the regional office of the Metropolitan Health Department in a unit focusing on infection control in health care facilities, one of the people said. Dr. Adams has since become a senior adviser to Dr. Became a sugar.

The initial version of the report presented to Mr. Cuomo’s team submitted contained both information on the deaths of nursing homes in hospitals and the deaths of residents in nursing homes, people familiar with the production of the report said.

While health department officials have agreed to remove the data, they oppose Cuomo’s requests to amend the report to play the role of the March 25 directive in spreading the virus, some people have said. said.

The report, as published, concluded that the directive was ‘not a significant factor in deaths in nursing homes’.

“The officials of the Covid task force did not request that the report until the end of the March 25 order play no role,” Ms said. Garvey said in a statement. “Task team members, knowing that the report was necessary to withstand rigorous public scrutiny, were very careful not to overdo the statistical analysis presented in the report. Overall, DOH and the Covid task force were the ultimate goal to ensure the public’s confidence in the conclusion to issue the report. ”

The March 25 order came as hospitals rushed to make way for an expected surge of coronavirus patients.

Nursing institutions that only heard of the policy after it was issued immediately objected, saying it would bring the virus into their facilities. A national group representing health care providers of nursing homes said at the time that the March 25 directive ‘does not in the least comply with the principles of patient safety. ‘

Jill Montag, a spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Health, said in August that the decision to issue the directive, “based on the merits of the public health experts at DOH and following [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] and [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines. Health department officials did not provide an updated statement on Thursday.

CMS and CDC said at the time that nursing home residents diagnosed with Covid-19 could accept it if they could take the necessary precautions to prevent transmission.

The Cuomo government repealed that directive in May.

The July report said the number of nursing home residents who died from Covid-19 was low compared to other northeastern states, measured as a percentage of the total population. But the other states counted residents of nursing homes who died in hospitals, as well as those who died inside nursing homes.

In January, a report by the New York Attorney General said the state had counted deaths among nursing homes and said the governor’s prescription had spread the disease.

—Lisa Schwartz and Corinne Ramey contributed to this article.

Write to Joe Palazzolo at [email protected], Jimmy Vielkind at [email protected] and Rebecca Davis O’Brien at [email protected]