Governor Andrew Cuomo’s oversight of deaths from nursing homes due to COVID-19 hid nearly 1,900 deaths in New York alone – with new figures raising the count in one Queens facility by more than 1,000 percent.
A post-analysis of the latest state health data shows that 5,443 nursing home residents in the Big Apple were killed by the coronavirus.
The statistics include 1885 elderly people who died in hospitals and were not included in the official DOH death toll in nursing homes until the Cuomo government finally released their numbers under duress following a damning report last month of the Attorney General Letitia James.
In New York City, the new figures push the overall death toll in nursing homes by 53 percent, according to the analysis of current DOH data from Saturday.
It’s just ashamed of the 56 percent understatement James estimates in her report.
The Post-Analysis also revealed that nearly all of the 162 nursing homes in the city that reported COVID-19 deaths within their walls – 152 – residents died after being sent to hospitals for treatment.
These include the Park Terrace Care Center in Corona, where only three residents in the facility were killed by the virus.
But another 31 residents died in hospitals, pushing the actual death toll there to 34 – a staggering 1,033 percent increase.
A Queens resident whose 72-year-old mother lives on Park Terrace was furious about the numbers, calling them ‘horrific’ and saying he thought ‘maybe a handful of residents’ had died.
“I was not aware that 34 people had passed through this facility,” said Anthony, 40, who unloaded a bag of clean clothes for his mother.
“There’s so much we do not know.”
Asked what he thinks of Cuomo, Anthony said: “He has deceived the nation and family members.”
Two staff members also said they were unaware that so many residents were dead, and one said: “It’s quite shocking.”
The other said, ‘I just think it’s crazy. I think steps were not finished yet. ”
The Rockaway Care Center in Queens is close to Park Terrace – with a 1,000 per cent increase in its death toll.
There are also three residents dead behind its doors, but another 30 die in hospitals.
The Jamaica Hospital, also in Queens, killed only four residents, but 34 in hospitals.
The Post exclusively revealed last week that Cuomo’s top assistant, Secretary of State Melissa DeRosa, had privately told Democratic lawmakers that his government withheld data on hospital deaths from them in August due to a pending investigated by federal prosecutors.
“Because then we were in a position where we were not sure whether what we would give to the Department of Justice, or what we would give to you, what we would start saying, would be used against us,” she said. said. said during the video conference call Wednesday night.
Last month, Cuomo also unleashed indignation by rejecting the importance of the place where the deaths took place, saying: ‘But who cares [if they] died in hospital, died in a nursing home? They are dead. “
The nursing home in the city with the largest number of residents dying in hospitals is the Upper East Side Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Manhattan, with 52, nearly twice the 29 who died in the facility.
At the Sheepshead Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Brooklyn, 51 residents died in hospitals, compared to just nine in the nursing home.
At the Boro Park Center for Rehabilitation and Health Care in Brooklyn, 42 residents died in hospitals, accounting for more than half of the 74 deaths.
Overall, the total number of nursing home residents who died from COVID-19 stood at 13,407 on Saturday.
The figure included 4,181 who died in hospitals and the number who died in nursing homes increased by 45 percent.
Cuomo’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.