(WBEN) - New reporting in the New York Times sheds light on the extent the Governor's office withheld information on how many New Yorkers died inside of nursing home facilities.
The Times reports that aides to the Governor repeatedly overruled state health officials over a span of at least five months in an effort to prevent state health officials from releasing the true death toll to the public or sharing it with state lawmakers.
A report released by the state the Health Department last year came only after involvement from the governor’s top advisers, including Melissa DeRosa. That report was rewritten several times by senior advisers to Cuomo, and emphasized that admissions from hospitals “were not a driver of nursing home infections or fatalities.” Instead, the report contained a lower death count and cited nursing home staff as the source of infections.
The Times report says the Cuomo administration wasn't comfortable releasing data it did not believe was wholly accurate. Cuomo attorney Elkan Abramowitz told the Times, “The whole brouhaha here is overblown to the point where there are cynical suggestions offered for the plain and simple truth that the chamber wanted only to release accurate information that they believed was totally unassailable."
Cuomo is currently facing a federal investigation over his administration's handling of data showing how many nursing home residents died from Covid, after the state attorney general in January released a report that said the number had been undercounted by "as much as 50 percent."
It was only after that report was released that the true numbers were made public. The Times reports the true numbers were known to the administration since last spring
The actions by Cuomo and his aides coincided with the time when the Governor was pitching and then writing a book on his leadership during the pandemic