New York Government top adviser Andrew Cuomo has urged state health officials to remove data from a public report showing that deaths from coronavirus-related nursing homes in the state exceed numbers previously acknowledged by the government.
Details of the July report were released Thursday night in a story first published by The Wall Street Journal.
The final report focused only on residents of nursing homes who died within the facilities and did not include residents of nursing homes who were transferred to hospitals after becoming ill, the Journal reported.
This means that the reported deaths of 6,432 nursing home residents were significantly lower than the actual death rate, sources with knowledge of the preparation of the state’s report told the newspaper.
Civil servants now place the death toll in New York on more than 15,000 residents in the nursing home and long-term care, the Journal reports. The report killed the number of people who have died since March 2020 from residents confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus.
NEW YORKERS SAY CUOMO SHOULD NOT SERVE BUT HIS APPROVAL PLUMMETTE
Cuomo defended the government’s actions on deaths in the nursing home, saying government officials followed federal guidance and worked to manage hospital capacity as the virus spread, the Journal reported.
The July report was drafted after state lawmakers and families of people who died expressed questions about a March 25, 2020 instruction from the Department of Health on nursing policy and the coronavirus – a statement that critics say the spread of the virus.
Then on February 10 this year, Cuomo’s assistant, Melissa DeRosa, told state lawmakers that government officials delayed the release of nursing home data last year for fear it would trigger a federal Trump administration investigation at the time. The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Department began searching for data from New York and other states last August, the Journal reported.
After the Journal’s report appeared Thursday night, at least two members of the Cuomo government issued statements in defense of the government’s actions.
Beth Garvey, Cuomo’s special adviser and senior adviser, claimed that ‘data outside the facility’, which means deaths in hospitals, was omitted in the July report after the state Department of Health ‘could not confirm that it was adequately verified. is not. . “
“It did not change the conclusion of the report, which was and is that the order as of March 25 ‘was not a driver of infections or deaths in nursing homes’.”
She added: ‘COVID task force officials did not request that the report concluding the March 25 order play no role; the members of the task force were in fact very careful to make the statistical analysis that was in the General DOH and the COVID Task Force the ultimate goal to ensure the public’s confidence in the conclusion to issue the report. ‘
Gary Holmes, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, issued the following statement with reference to the state’s report in July and to Howard Zucker, the state health commissioner:
“This report, which states that the advice on 25 March was not the cause of death in nursing homes, was a collaborative process between DOH and the COVID task force. The aim of the report was to ensure that the public has a clear non-political evaluation of COVID’s nursing homes at the height of the pandemic. All data collected came to a general conclusion – the distribution of staff was probably the main driver COVID brought into these nursing homes. task force was not satisfied that the data were verified against hospital data, and therefore the final report used only data for deaths in facilities, which was disclosed in the report.While the deaths from the facility were set aside for verification, the DOH was comfortable with the final report and fully believes in its conclusion that the pri more driver introduced by COVID in the nursing homes, read by staff introduced. Even Bill Hammond of the conservative think tank Empire Center found that the March 25 advice was not a primary driver for COVID in nursing homes. The decision was made to initially release the report without the information being available outside the facility, and to update the report later to include the deaths outside the facility. This was done in February and like dr. Zucker testified to the legislature, the conclusions remained the same as in July. ‘
The Journal’s report also has a response to Democratic New York Congressman Ron Kim, who previously claimed that Cuomo threatened him for speaking out against the governor of the state’s nursing homes.
“This is criminal,” Kim wrote on Twitter. “The governor’s top advisers have urged state health officials to strip a public report of the data showing more deaths in nursing homes. The changes that Cuomo’s staff have made to the report show that they are already in the summer of 2020. more complete report of NH deaths. “
Reports of differences in the composition of coronavirus-related deaths in the state’s nursing homes have drawn serious criticism from Cuomo, who initially received national praise for his treatment of the coronavirus – despite the fact that the state of New York is a U.S. center was for its deadly spread.
Now the nursing home reports are linked to allegations of sexual harassment against the 63-year-old third-term Democrat, who is increasingly facing two parties to resign – as well as a planned investigation by the New York attorney general.
The Journal’s story about the nursing home data was published the same evening that the “CBS Evening News” aired an interview with Charlotte Bennett, one of at least three women who committed sexual misconduct against Cuomo.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE
During the interview, Bennett – a 25-year-old former assistant to Cuomo – suggested that positive media coverage about Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus may have boosted his ego.
“I think in many ways he felt like he was invulnerable,” Bennett told CBS ‘Nora O’Donnell.
Bennett accused Cuomo of ‘trying to sleep with me’, while two other women – Lindsey Boylan and Anna Ruch – also accused him of inappropriate remarks and behavior.
Cuomo denied at a news conference Wednesday that he had deliberately abused the women. He apologized and said that he now realized that his comments had an unintended effect, claiming that he had ‘learned an important lesson’, but that he did not intend to leave office.
Fox Ruins Michael Ruiz contributed to this story.