Tag: Andrew Cuomo

NY reveals 59% of Onondaga County’s Covid deaths are senior care facility residents

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.syracuse.com/coronavirus/2021/02/ny-reveals-59-of-onondaga-countys-covid-deaths-are-senior-care-facility-residents.html

Excerpt:

Residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities for seniors account for 59% of Onondaga County’s total Covid-19 death toll, according to data the state released for the first time over the weekend.

…..

The new data shows nursing home resident deaths account for 52 percent of Onondaga County’s 626 Covid-19 deaths. Before the state released that data, a Syracuse.com investigation estimated that total deaths of nursing home residents were 50% higher than reported by the state and that they accounted for about 60% of all local deaths. Shortly after that story was published, the state Attorney General’s office issued a report that said the state underreported nursing home deaths by 50%.

The new data for the first time gives a breakdown of Covid-19 deaths among residents of Onondaga County assisted living facilities and adult care homes. These facilities provide non-medical services to adults unable to live independently. The data shows 40 residents of these facilities in Onondaga County died of Covid-19 as of Feb. 6. Those deaths combined with nursing home resident deaths total 367, or 59% of the county’s 626 Covid-19 fatalities.

Author(s): James T. Mulder

Publication Date: 8 February 2021

Publication Site: syracuse.com

Cuomo Accepts Some Blame in Nursing Home Scandal but Denies Cover-Up

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/nyregion/cuomo-nursing-homes.html

Excerpt:

More than 15,000 people have died from the coronavirus in New York’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities. But as recently as late January, the state was reporting only about 8,500 fatalities, excluding virus-related deaths that occurred physically outside of those facilities, such as in hospitals.

About two weeks ago, the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, accused the Cuomo administration of severely undercounting those deaths connected to nursing homes. Hours later, the state updated those numbers, adding thousands of deaths to the official tally. Since then, a court order has resulted in more updates, further increasing the number of deaths.

Ms. James’s assertion of an undercount of total deaths of nursing home residents fueled accusations that the Cuomo administration may have artificially depressed the number of those deaths to try to deflect blame for a policy set early in the pandemic: sending nursing home residents who had been hospitalized with the coronavirus back to the nursing homes.

The governor has said the state was following federal guidelines in returning the residents and trying to increase hospital capacity, assertions that he repeated on Monday, while also denying any suggestion that he was making any decision because of political calculations. “These decisions are not political decisions,” he said.

Author(s): Jesse McKinley

Publication Date: 15 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Times

Start apologizing, Gov. Cuomo — and stop the lies

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://nypost.com/2021/02/15/start-apologizing-gov-cuomo-and-stop-the-lies/

Excerpt:

Indeed, it seems to have started as soon as The Post’s Bernadette Hogan first revealed the existence of the deadly March 25 order by asking about it at a press conference weeks later. At that April 20 presser, the gov pretended he’d never heard of the order before. (And never mind that he is tight as a bug with the state hospital lobby, which plainly requested the order if only to clear beds for more urgent COVID cases. Nor that Cuomo is a notorious micromanager unlikely to let such a deadly mandate be issued without his personal signoff.)

It’s at about this point that the state Department of Health suddenly started reporting “nursing home COVID deaths” in a way unique to New York — leaving out residents who died only after transfer to a hospital. This, even as the DOH continued to record the full truth but refused to share it.

Indeed, the Cuomoites stonewalled Freedom of Information Law requests from the Empire Center and the Associated Press for most of the next year — again, starting long before the feds showed any interest.

The state only finally started releasing that info after 1) Attorney General Tish James’ report outlined the basic fact that the nursing-home death toll was 50 percent higher than Cuomo or Health Commissioner Howard Zucker had been admitting, and 2) a judge outright ordered the DOH to comply with the Empire Center FOIL request.

Author(s): Editorial board

Publication Date: 15 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Post

Democrats slam ‘lying’ Andrew Cuomo over COVID-19 nursing home scandal

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://nypost.com/2021/02/15/democrats-slam-cuomo-over-covid-19-nursing-home-cover-up/

Excerpt:

Fellow Democratic legislators in New York weren’t buying Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s explanation Monday as to why he refused for months to release a true accounting of nursing home residents who died from the coronavirus.

Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), whose uncle died from COVID-19, bluntly said that “all of it is BS” and a cover-up.

“They could have given us the information back in May and June of last year. They chose not to,” Kim said after hearing Cuomo was blaming the Department of Justice probe for delays in releasing the accurate coronavirus death tally of nursing home residents.

Author(s): Carl Campanile and Nolan Hicks

Publication Date: 15 February 2021

Publication Site: NY Post

Cuomo Unmasked

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.city-journal.org/cuomo-hid-ny-state-nursing-home-deaths-in-spring-2020

Excerpt:

Cuomo ducked press demands for nursing-home mortality data throughout 2020, even as every other state made the information public. While New York admitted to about 7,000 nursing home deaths, informed estimates put the real count at around 12,000; the state refused to confirm the numbers. Last month, Attorney General Letitia James released a report acknowledging that the real death toll was close to 13,000. In reaction to this news, Cuomo snapped, “Who cares? 33 [percent], 28 [percent]. Died in a hospital. Died in a nursing home. They died.”

What this episode reveals is Andrew Cuomo’s massive egotism. He was elevated by a fawning national media into a preposterously salvific role last spring and summer. Throughout the course of the pandemic, the governor gave daily televised briefings in which he hailed his own performance as a beacon of leadership. Cuomo delivered such apothegms as, “It’s going to be hard, there is no doubt. But at the same time it is going to be OK.” He also made a point, continuously, of calling the novel coronavirus the “European virus,” presumably in counterpoint to Trump’s calling it the “China virus,” though it is widely recognized that the virus originated in China, even if some infected people may have caught it in Italy before bringing it to America.

Author(s): Seth Barron

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: City Journal

As Cuomo Banks on Federal Funds, Localities Grow Nervous

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.governing.com/finance/As-Cuomo-Banks-on-Federal-Funds-Localities-Grow-Nervous.html

Excerpt:

 Receive from above, take from below. Such is the essence of one theme of the 2021 state budget plan unveiled last week by New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

The Democratic governor’s budget plan has a basic premise: Red ink will be washed away only if his request for a bailout from the federal government happens.

Cuomo’s new budget assumes the federal government will give New York at least $6 billion over two years as part of a broader $1.9 trillion Covid-related stimulus package being negotiated by Democratic President Joseph Biden and the Democratic-led Congress.

Author(s): TOM PRECIOUS, THE BUFFALO NEWS

Publication Date: 25 January 2021

Publication Site: Governing

COVID-19: Cuomo Admits Lack Of Transparency On Reporting Nursing Home Data Amid Backlash

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/northsalem/politics/covid-19-cuomo-admits-lack-of-transparency-on-reporting-nursing-home-data-amid-backlash/803321/

Excerpt:

In his first public comments on a top aide’s admission that his administration “froze” when asked by both federal and state officials to release data on COVID-19 nursing home fatalities, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the lack of transparency was a mistake.

Cuomo said “there was a delay,” in reporting the data, and that void led to “skepticism, cynicism and conspiracy theories which furthered confusion” in a news briefing held in Albany on Monday, Feb. 15.

“We should have provided more information faster,” Cuomo said. “We were too focused on doing the job and addressing the crisis of the moment. I take total responsibility for that.”

Author(s): Joe Lombardi

Publication Date: 15 February 2021

Publication Site: Daily Voice

Cuomo Accuses NY Lawmakers of ‘Extortion’ Over Calls to Investigate Nursing Home Deaths

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cuomo-accuses-ny-lawmakers-of-extortion-over-calls-to-investigate-nursing-home-deaths/

Excerpt:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday blasted state lawmakers who have threatened to rescind his emergency powers and open investigations into his administration’s coverup of its mishandling of nursing home coronavirus deaths.

“You can’t use a subpoena or the threat of investigation to leverage a person,” Cuomo said in a briefing on Monday. “That’s a crime, it’s called abuse of process, it’s called extortion.”

He also defended his earlier policy that forced nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive patients after they were discharged from hospitals, saying that it was not sick residents who spread the virus within the nursing homes amid New York’s first wave in the spring, but visitors and staff.

Of 613 nursing homes in the state, 365 received a COVID-positive patient from the hospital, Cuomo said. Ninety-eight percent of nursing homes that admitted a patient from the hospital already had COVID in their facility before the patient was admitted, he said.

Author(s): Brittany Bernstein

Publication Date: 15 February 2021

Publication Site: National Review

Many State Senators Want To Strip Cuomo Of Emergency Powers, Citing Nursing Home Cover-Up

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/northsalem/politics/many-state-senators-want-to-strip-cuomo-of-emergency-powers-citing-nursing-home-cover-up/803232/

Excerpt:

New York State Senate Republicans, and now, a growing number of Democratic Senators, are seeking a special session in an effort to remove Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s emergency powers in the wake of the report into the underreporting of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes statewide.

Senate Republican Leader Robert Ortt and members of the Republican Conference called on the Senate Majority to convene a special session and strip Cuomo of his emergency powers while calling for a thorough investigation into his administration. They were later joined by 14 Democratic senators.

…..

“This administration has shown a callous disregard for these vulnerable residents and their families for months, but this stunning admission is a horrific new low,” she said. “A full, independent investigation into the state’s handling of the COVID crisis in New York’s nursing homes needs to be launched immediately and any lawmaker who is not actively working to make that happen is complicit in the cover-up—period.”

Author(s): Zak Fallia

Publication Date: 13 February 2021

Publication Site: Daily Voice

Coverup claims engulf Cuomo as scandal over nursing home deaths grows

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2021/02/12/coverup-claims-engulf-cuomo-as-scandal-over-nursing-home-deaths-grows-1363353

Excerpt:

The administration’s handling of nursing homes is now a full-blown scandal — a stunning reversal for Cuomo, whose early handling of the pandemic and high-profile daily press briefings earned him soaring approval ratings, an Emmy and a book deal.

Now, many fellow Democrats want to write an epilogue.

As Cuomo headed to Washington Friday to meet with President Joe Biden on pandemic response, at least 14 Democrats from the left flank of the state Legislature called for a repeal of the governor’s emergency powers — enacted nearly 11 months ago — that have given him nearly unilateral authority during the pandemic. And momentum appears to be growing in the Legislature to exert more oversight.

Author(s): SHANNON YOUNG and ANNA GRONEWOLD

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: Politico

Top NY Republicans seek to oust Cuomo, other officials after nursing home revelations

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/538580-top-new-york-republicans-seek-to-oust-cuomo-other-officials-after

Excerpt:

Top New York Republicans have taken to Twitter to call for an investigation into New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and other state officials following a Thursday report that a top aide admitted the government withheld the state’s nursing home coronavirus death toll. 

Several Republicans from the Empire State issued statements after the report, arguing for a probe to be launched into the government’s reported decision to withhold nursing home coronavirus data, with some going so far as to call for Cuomo to be impeached and removed from office. 

Author(s): CELINE CASTRONUOVO

Publication Date: 12 February 2021

Publication Site: The Hill

COVID Mortality: New York, Nursing Homes, and Cuomo

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/covid-mortality-new-york-nursing

Graphic:

Excerpt:

I am very angry about all of this. That’s why I haven’t actually been posting about it that much.

If you think I have been annoyed by lack of attention to detail in COVID data, I am absolutely livid over the falsification of very key data, especially since it has been blatant since April 2020.

It is difficult to be appropriately analytical when one has such an emotional reaction to the messing about with data. I’ve had this happen at ma prior employer, when I realized my numbers were being messed with, and yes, falsifying data is one of the things that will make me blow my top.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 13 February 2021

Publication Site: STUMP