A House subcommittee detailed how Andrew M. Cuomo, then the governor of New York, and his aides sought to undercount and deflect blame for deaths in nursing homes early in the pandemic.
A congressional report released Monday criticized former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s handling of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly his administration’s efforts to conceal the true number of New Yorkers who died in nursing homes and shift blame for the deaths.
The 48-page report, by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, zeros in on March 2020 guidance from the New York State Department of Health that directed nursing homes to readmit patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus.
That guidance, the report says, had “predictable but disastrous consequences.” State health officials told the subcommittee that the Health Department had developed the guidance and that Mr. Cuomo’s top aides had signed off on it.
The report also details how top advisers to Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, influenced the conclusions of a report from the Health Department months later in an effort to deflect blame for deaths in nursing homes.
Mr. Cuomo resigned in August 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations, which he denies. He is scheduled to testify before the subcommittee for the second time on Tuesday.
In a statement on Monday, Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for the former governor, called the report sloppy. He added that the investigation, which was conducted by a Republican-led panel, was “all smoke and mirrors designed to continue to distract from Trump’s failed pandemic leadership.”
“Its report does not conclude there was any causality” between the March 2020 guidance and deaths in nursing homes, Mr. Azzopardi said.
To produce the report, the subcommittee interviewed Mr. Cuomo and about 10 aides and reviewed close to 550,000 pages of documents. Its findings echo reporting by The New York Times and other news outlets about efforts by Mr. Cuomo and his administration to hide the true scale of nursing home deaths. --->READ MORE HERE
Gov. Andrew Cuomo allegedly himself “edited” a state report that deflated New York’s COVID-19 death toll in nursing homes — which his top aides pressured health officials into releasing, despite knowing the issue would turn into a “great debacle,” according to the stunning results of an investigation by a US House committee.
Cuomo’s office “absolutely” signed off on the disastrous directive early in the pandemic forcing coronavirus patients back into nursing homes — leading to as many as 9,000 excess COVID deaths — the final congressional report and witness testimonies exclusively obtained by The Post show.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic conducted the probe and majority staff released the findings ahead of a public hearing with the 66-year-old ex-governor on Tuesday.
The investigators accused Cuomo in a memo Monday of making “demonstrably false” statements as part of a “cover-up,” citing conflicting testimony from his top aides.
“This is going to be the great debacle in the history books,” wrote Cuomo aide Stephanie Benton in a June 7, 2020, email about the nursing home death count. “Don’t u [sic] see how bad this is? Or do we admit error and give up?”
Four of Cuomo’s aides told the House investigators they believed the email from Benton was likely dictated by the governor himself.
“Within hours” of the missive, New York health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker received “talking points” that were used to draft the audit on the nursing home deaths, which was released on July 6 and excluded out-of-facility fatalities.
The three-term Democrat and his inner circle “reviewed” and “edited” the state Department of Health report that vastly undercounted the fatalities, according to the documents.
According to Cuomo’s then-director of operations, Dr. Jim Malatras, who served as a member of the governor’s COVID task force, top aide Melissa DeRosa “laid out the points that she wanted to have touched upon in the report.” --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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