Cuomo Advisers Altered Report on Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top advisers successfully pushed state health officials to strip a public report of data showing that more nursing-home residents had died of Covid-19 than the administration had acknowledged, according to people with knowledge of the report’s production.
The July report, which examined the factors that led to the spread of the virus in nursing homes, focused only on residents who died inside long-term-care facilities, leaving out those who had died in hospitals after becoming sick in nursing homes. As a result, the report said 6,432 nursing-home residents had died—a significant undercount of the death toll attributed to the state’s most vulnerable population, the people said. The initial version of the report said nearly 10,000 nursing-home residents had died in New York by July last year, one of the people said.
STAY INFORMED
Get a coronavirus briefing six days a week, and a weekly Health newsletter once the crisis abates: Sign up here.
The changes Mr. Cuomo’s aides and health officials made to the nursing-home report, which haven’t been previously disclosed, reveal that the state possessed a fuller accounting of out-of-facility nursing-home deaths as early as the summer. The Health Department resisted calls by state and federal lawmakers, media outlets and others to release the data for another eight months.
State officials now say more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities were confirmed or presumed to have died from Covid-19 since March of last year—counting both those who died in long-term-care facilities and those who died later in hospitals. That figure is about 50% higher than earlier official death tolls.
Mr. Cuomo now faces mounting political pressure over both his administration’s handling of the pandemic in nursing homes and accusations that he sexually harassed two former staffers. Republicans and some Democrats have called for the governor to resign from office or be impeached.
Mr. Cuomo has rejected calls for his resignation and apologized for his behavior. Regarding nursing home deaths, Mr. Cuomo has said his administration followed federal guidance and acted to preserve hospital capacity.
State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, pictured in January, was among the aides who reviewed and requested changes to the July report.
Photo:
peter foley/EPA/Shutterstock
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn asked the Cuomo administration in February for information about nursing-home deaths, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Federal prosecutors expressed interest in the July report, people familiar with the matter said.
In response to questions from the Journal, administration officials said Thursday that Mr. Cuomo’s advisers advocated against including data on out-of-facility deaths because they had concerns about its accuracy.
“The out-of-facility data was omitted after DOH could not confirm it had been adequately verified,” Beth Garvey, a special counsel and senior adviser to Mr. Cuomo, 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 the out-of-facility data shouldn’t be included in the report.
“[The Department of Health] was comfortable with the final report and believes fully in its conclusion that the primary driver that introduced Covid into the nursing homes was brought in by staff,” said Gary Holmes, a spokesman for the Health Department.
The Health Department updated the report on Feb. 11 to include out-of-facility deaths of nursing-home residents, saying its conclusions remained unchanged by the new data.
State lawmakers from both parties have said the out-of-facility death data was critical for them to evaluate nursing-home policies that could prevent future fatalities. They said the Cuomo administration’s decision to delay its release constitutes a coverup of data the governor knew would be damaging to his political stature.
Melissa DeRosa,
Mr. Cuomo’s top aide, explained the delay to state lawmakers during a Feb. 10 meeting. She said that the state…
Read More: Cuomo Advisers Altered Report on Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths