Cuomo's controversial nursing home order was issued a year ago today
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Mr. Kim said the governor had called him and had threatened to ruin his reputation unless he rescinded the remarks. At a subsequent news conference, Mr. Cuomo responded by denouncing Mr. Kim in scathing terms. But, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions over the July report who were interviewed by The Times, Dr. Zucker was aware as early as June that officials in his department believed the data was solid enough to include in the report.
It has been exactly one year since New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a directive that has led to critics blaming him for thousands of nursing home deaths during the coronavirus pandemic. The directive was intended to free up hospital beds for the sickest patients as cases surged. But relatives, patient advocates and nursing home administrators have called it a misguided decision, blaming it for helping to spread the virus among the state's most vulnerable residents. The F.B.I. has since been looking at information that New York submitted last year to the Justice Department, which had asked for data on Covid-19 cases and deaths in nursing homes, according to people familiar with the investigation.
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The center received the data on Feb. 3, just a few days after New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, issued her report on the undercount. At issue was a policy issued in March 2020 that effectively ordered nursing homes to take back residents who had been discharged from hospitals after being treated for Covid-19. The goal was to keep virus patients from overwhelming hospitals, a step other states also took.
“No one would argue with the need for nursing homes to maintain adequate levels of PPE, but this was an order to stockpile PPE at the moment of highest cost and least supply,” the report says. The nursing homes were unable to protect nursing home patients after accepting COVID patients,” Alvino said. The report also says that “it was unreasonable to leave the directive in place for so long” before Cuomo finally gave in to public pressure and reversed it on May 10, 2020. Cuomo and DeRosathen claimedthat in reality the state lawmakers had been notified their request was being put on hold while the administration was addressing a federal request, but lawmakers pushed back, denying they were ever told about this. And some accused the state of using the veneer of a scientific study to absolve the Democratic governor by reaching the same conclusion he had been floating for weeks — that unknowingly infected nursing home employees were the main drivers of the outbreaks. Cuomo said Republicans have continued to “politicize” the order “because they don’t want to accept responsibility” for coronavirus-related failures at the federal level.
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On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo defended his order that sent coronavirus patients into nursing homes and blamed the infections in nursing homes on staffers bringing in the virus. The directive, which forbade nursing homes from turning away residents with COVID-19, was issued to free up hospital beds amid rising case numbers, but Cuomo effectively rescinded it in May 2020, nearly 10 months later, amid worries of increasing infections in nursing homes. The question that remains today is why,” said Serino at the Wednesday morning news conference. During a press conference in Albany, an ideologically diverse coalition rallied behind a bill to designate March 25 as “We Care Remembrance Day,” and another to create a body tasked with studying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic response on deaths in nursing homes. Lawmakers and advocates commemorated themore than 15,000 nursing home deathsin New York amid the COVID-19 pandemic on Wednesday, as they pitched ameasure to get to the bottomof the missteps made under disgraced ex-Gov.
On a private conference call in February, Melissa DeRosa, a top aide to Mr. Cuomo, told Democratic lawmakers that the state had withheld the data because it feared an investigation by the Trump administration. Regardless, Richard Mollot, executive director of the New York City-based Long Term Care Community Coalition, an organization advocating for care facility residents, blasted Cuomo for his administration's reporting discrepancies. Itled to a spike of “several hundred and possibly more than 1,000”fatalities in state-regulated nursing homes, according to a watchdog report released in February 2021. Tracy Alvino, whose father died after contracting the coronavirus while in a Long Island nursing home following neck surgery, said the NYSBA report "confirms what us families already knew." Cuomo has faced additional pressure to step down in the wake of multiple claims of sexual harassment, ranging from alleged inappropriate comments to an accusation that he groped a current staffer under her blouse. The governor has denied touching anyone improperly and claimed any offending remarks were not meant to cause discomfort.
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It also said 80% of the 310 nursing homes that admitted coronavirus patients already had a confirmed or suspected case among its residents or staff before the directive was issued. And it contends the median number of coronavirus patients sent to nursing homes had been hospitalized for nine days, the same period that the study said it likely takes for the virus to no longer be contagious. After being lambasted in the press for the March 25 executive order that forced New York elder care facilities to accept patients infected with the highly contagious virus, Cuomo attempted to blame the nursing homes for not disobeying his orders during a Wednesday press conference. On Wednesday, New York State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker issued a 16-page letter answering some state lawmakers' questions about nursing home deaths that they had requested answers to six months before.
Yet, CDC guidance said that only “medically ready” COVID-19 patients should be discharged to nursing homes and only if the facilities are able to properly care for the patients. The administration has also argued that there was fear that hospitals in New York City, the first COVID-19 epicenter in the United States, would be overwhelmed with the number of patients to treat. She found that the death count may be 50% higher than what the Cuomo administration had reported. The attorney general’s findings included the number of deaths that occurred after residents were transferred to the hospital, which Cuomo’s administration excluded in its tally of deaths in nursing homes. Then in January, Ms. James reported that the administration had undercounted virus-related deaths of nursing home residents by several thousand.
New York's Legislature plans to hold joint hearings next month, and Republicans in Congress have demanded Cuomo turned over records on the March 25 order and its effects. The NY Post reported the results of an exclusive audit of campaign donations to Cuomo by OpenTheBooks.com, which explained that the Governor’s rewards to the GNHA began way before CoronaVirus began to infect the state. The lawmaker, Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Queens Democrat, had said he believed the administration was “trying to dodge having any incriminating evidence” when it withheld the data. Numerous Democratic lawmakers, including most of the state’s congressional delegation, have called for him to resign. The State Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, has opened an impeachment inquiry. Dozens of current and former employees of the governor’s office during Mr. Cuomo’s tenure have also described it more broadly as a chaotic and unprofessional workplace that was particularly toxic for young women.
The waiting times for this flight have not yet been determined or are not available. "Blame-shifting, name-calling and half-baked data manipulations will not make the facts or the questions they raise go away," Louisiana U.S Rep. Steve Scalise, Republican leader of a House subcommittee on the COVID crisis, wrote in a letter to Cuomo last week. New York Department of Health spokesman Gary Holmes said the study was intended to "measure the strength of the variables. ... The strongest factor in driving the nursing home infections was through staff infections."
" are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission." Among the holes in the study highlighted by University of Texas, Houston, epidemiologist Catherine Troisi was a lack of data on what happened at dozens of nursing homes that had no COVID-19 infections before those sick with the virus were sent to them. Throughout the summer and fall, Mr. Cuomo dismissed the criticism by citing to the Health Department report. Around the same time, he was celebrating the state’s initial success in controlling the virus’s spread after a devastating spring during which tens of thousands of people died. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into whether Mr. Cuomo and his aides provided false data on resident deaths to the Justice Department, according to people with knowledge of the investigation.
“While we have a new governor and a new health commissioner, we still do not have answers, and we still don’t have any plan to get them,” Serino (R-Poughkeepsie) said. "Why would you place COVID patients with the most vulnerable people in nursing homes? It’s insane," Paybee said. In addition, the report notes that when the controversy over the directive erupted, the DOH "also ordered that nursing homes secure and maintain a sixty day supply of ."
Its findings rely in part on astudy by the Empire Center for Public Policy, first reported by The Post, that tied "several hundred and possibly more than 1,000" deaths of nursing home residents to the DOH’s March 25, 2020, order. Its findings rely in part on a study by the Empire Center for Public Policy, first reported by The Post, that tied “several hundred and possibly more than 1,000” deaths of nursing home residents to the DOH’s March 25, 2020, order. State lawmakers -- including many fellow Democrats -- began calling for Cuomo's resignation or impeachment after Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa reportedlysaid on a callthat nursing home death data had been withheld from state officials out of fear of repercussions from the U.S.
For months, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has defended himself against criticism of his administration’s handling of the coronavirus in nursing homes. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration has been accused of deliberately obscuring the full scope of nursing home deaths in New York. Cuomo discontinued the directive in May 2020, requiring hospitals to obtain a negative COVID-19 test result from patients before allowing them to return to nursing homes. But the 33-page state report flatly says "that nursing home admissions from hospitals were not a driver of nursing home infections or fatalities." Cuomo’s March 25 order was just plain stupid, but if it was tied to politics, it is criminal. While there is no definitive proof it was a quid pro quo, the circumstantial evidence makes the order smell rancid.
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