The New York Times
Cuomo Aides Nursing Home Rewritten to Hide Higher Mortality Rates
The most important aid to Governor Andrew Cuomo was concerned: a report written by state health officials had just landed and it contains a count of how many New Yorkers died in the pandemic. The number – at that point in June more than 9,000 – was not public, and the governor’s most senior assistants wanted to keep it that way. They rewrote the report to extract it, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times. The extraordinary intervention, which took place just as Cuomo began writing a book about his pandemic achievements, was the earliest act still known in what critics called a month-long effort by the governor and his associates to reduce the full range of deaths. in old age homes. After the Attorney General revealed this year that thousands of deaths of nursing home residents had been counted, Cuomo finally released the full information, saying he withheld it out of concern that the Trump administration could conduct a politically motivated investigation into the state’s handling. of the outbreak in nursing homes. But Cuomo and his assistants began hiding the numbers months earlier as his assistants struggled with their own top health officials, and long before the federal authorities requested data, according to documents and interviews with six people with direct knowledge of the discussions. , who requested anonymity to discuss the closed doors. The central role played by the governor’s top assistants reflects the length that Cuomo went to in the midst of a deadly pandemic to control data, dispose of public health expertise and his position as national leader in the fight against coronavirus. to strengthen. At the time of writing, the New York State Department of Health – in a graph reviewed by The Times and drafted – had the death toll about 50% higher than the Cuomo quoted in public. administration. The health department worked on the report with McKinsey, a consulting firm hired by Cuomo to help with the pandemic response. The graph they compiled compared deaths in nursing homes in New York with other states. New York’s total of 9,250 deaths exceeds that of the second highest state, New Jersey, which then had 6,150. The changes sought by the governor’s assistants sparked bitter talks with health officials working on the report. The conflict punctuated an already strained and uprooted relationship between Cuomo and his health department, which would fuel an exodus of the state’s leading public health officials. In the past week, Cuomo’s once seemingly unwavering grip on power has been toppled by a spate of scandals. Three women accused the governor of inappropriate conduct, including sexual harassment in the workplace. On Wednesday, he publicly apologized for his actions, which will soon be subject to an independent investigation under the supervision of the Attorney General. The crisis over Cuomo’s behavior towards women came just when his government had political unrest over old age homes. Lawmakers tried to deprive him of the emergency services he received during the pandemic, and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn opened a separate investigation. According to a person with knowledge of the discussions, an outside attorney appointed by the state interviewed officials about dealing with nursing homes during the pandemic. Among the helpers involved in changing the report was Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s top assistant; Linda Lacewell, head of the financial services department; and Jim Malatras, a former Cuomo top adviser, resumed work on the pandemic. No one has expertise on public health. In response to a detailed list of questions from The Times sent on Tuesday, the governor’s office responded Thursday night with a statement from Beth Garvey, a special counsel, who said the data was omitted outside the facility after DOH could not confirm that it is adequately verified. She added that the additional data did not change the conclusion of the report. Tensions over the death toll date back to the early weeks of the pandemic when Cuomo issued an order preventing nursing homes from dismissing people discharged from hospital after they were treated for COVID-19. The order was similar to those issued in other states to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. But by late spring, Republicans suggested the order caused a deadly spread of the virus in nursing homes. Cuomo disputes that this was so. Nevertheless, critics and others have seized on the way the state publicly reported deaths: Unlike other states, New York excluded residents who were transferred to hospitals and effectively dressed there in how many nursing residents died of COVID-19 . The 33-page report, released by the state health department in July, found that the governor’s policy was not to blame, but it became a turning point in the debate in Albany over the governor’s policy. The day after it was published, lawmakers began trial and demanded complete information. Public health officials have criticized the approach. The following month, a brainstorming session began searching for the data, as did the Department of Justice. Health officials, nurses and even some of Cuomo’s assistants expressed their astonishment at the governor’s apparent insistence on delaying the release of the data for so long, as none of the information released so far represents the total number of COVID-19s. deaths in New have not changed. York – now more than 47,000, including more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes. But the July report enabled Cuomo to address the issue of the nursing home as it was resolved last year, paving the way for him to concentrate on New York’s success in controlling the virus. “I’m now thinking of writing a book about what we went through,” Cuomo said four days after the report was released. According to the person who was aware of his planning at the time, he had already sought formal approval from a state ethics agency to earn outside income from book sales. The governor’s policy of ordering nursing homes to accept and re-admit patients who tested positive for the coronavirus remains a topic of intense debate. An investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, released in January, said Cuomo’s memo to nursing homes is in line with federal guidance, but that it ‘could put residents at greater risk for harm in some facilities. . Garvey said in her statement that the governor’s order did not drive the deaths into nursing homes, a conclusion also reached in the health department’s report. At the time, when the report was being prepared, Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, was still enjoying great popularity for his television newsletters. For its report, the Department of Health used data submitted by the state’s more than 600 nursing homes, which were hit particularly hard in March and early April as New York became a global epicenter. “For us, it was clear: you have to report cases and deaths by all categories – cases in nursing homes, cases in the hospital,” says Stuart Almer, CEO of Gurwin Health Care System, which manages a 460-bed. nursing home on Long Island that killed 65 residents of COVID-19. “We’ve always had confidence, and it’s still in our numbers.” State health officials were able to see from the data that a significant number of residents died after being transferred to hospitals. The state commissioner for health, dr. Howard Zucker, was already aware in June that officials in his department believe the data is good enough to include in the report, according to two people who are aware of the discussions. But Zucker testified to lawmakers in early August that the department was still checking the numbers and could not release them. State Senator Gustavo Rivera, chairman of the health committee, suggested during the hearing that the data be withheld to improve the governor’s image. “It’s a problem, brother,” Rivera told Zucker. “It seems, sir, that in this case you are choosing to define it differently so that you can look better.” In a statement issued Thursday, Health Department spokesman Gary Holmes confirmed Garvey’s words and disputed that the numbers were ready in time for the report, saying they would not change their conclusions regardless. do not have. Dr. Eleanor Adams was the head of the health department on the report, but her draft was substantially rewritten by Malatras, now the chancellor of New York State University. He was among a number of officials and former advisers temporarily recruited by Cuomo to help with the pandemic response. The back-and-forth stretch went much further than the usual process of the governor’s office indicating that it gave changes to an agency report, and according to two people with knowledge of the discussions, it sometimes became ‘intense’. Health officials say the governor’s office, whose opinion was conveyed by Malatras, wanted to simplify matters too much. They were worried that it was no longer a true scientific report, but feared for their work if they did not go along. Nevertheless, an edited version prepared by Malatras did not remove the higher death toll. This came later after DeRosa and Lacewell became aware of its inclusion. It was taken out shortly afterwards. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company