At the beginning of the pandemic I was impressed by Andrew Cuomo‘s power point daily briefings about the COVID-19 crisis. He seemed a voice of reason and the former 45th U.S. President was pushing bleach and hydoxycloriquine as miracle cures. They are not cures they are deadly distractions.
In the early days Cuomo required nursing homes to accept Covid-19 positive patients when New York’s hospitals were overflowing. There was a statistically significant increase in resident deaths in nursing homes that accepted hospital transfers.
Now he has admitted to hiding data about deaths of New York State nursing home residents. He obscured public health data for political gain. The state’s official COVID-19 death count in nursing home is roughly 8,700 right now. A 56 percent increase on that count would bring the total deaths to well over 13,000.
The Cuomo administration managed to keep much of that nursing home data under wraps until late January, 2021 when the dam broke. The Democratic state attorney general published a bombshell accusation that the administration under counted nursing home deaths by more than 50%. The Associated Press showed more than 9,000 recovering Covid-19 patients were transferred from nursing homes to hospitals, which was 40% higher than the previously disclosed number. The New York Post then reported that one of Cuomo’s top aides claimed the administration hid data on nursing home deaths to avoid political retribution from Trump.
It remains unclear what level of accountability Cuomo will face. Even if Cuomo dodges criminal or civil liability, he will still face political accountability at the hands of voters. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is touting his success battling the virus but the state has surpasses 10,000 nursing home deaths as well.
