Cuomo Slammed After New Report on Falsified Nursing Home Deaths

When the coronavirus crisis got to the United States in the early spring of the godforsaken year of 2020, it arrived as we all knew it would:  In New York City.

The Big Apple was primed for disaster:  Not only is it a highly international city where travel and tourism make for a constant flow of visitors, but the population density is sky high as well.  NYC soon became the epicenter that it was always going to become, and some of the decisions made by authorities are still haunting families today.

Governor Andrew Cuomo had been widely criticized in the early stages of the pandemic for his decision to used resources and space from nursing homes to handle hospital overflow, given the risk posed by the virus to the elderly.

Now, nearly a year later, the full extent of the damage done by Cuomo’s decision is becoming known.

New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report Thursday which found Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration had “undercounted” the number of coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes by as much as 50 percent.

According to an online press release regarding the 76-page report, the discovery was made as AG James was “investigating nursing homes throughout New York state based on allegations of patient neglect and other concerning conduct that may have jeopardized the health and safety of residents and employees.”

Upon looking into the matter, it was discovered “a larger number of nursing home residents died from COVID-19 than the New York State Department of Health’s (DOH) published nursing home data reflected and may have been undercounted by as much as 50 percent.”

And that’s not all.

The report also noted certain nursing homes had failed to meet “compliance with infection control protocols,” which “put residents at increased risk of harm, and facilities that had lower pre-pandemic staffing ratings had higher COVID-19 fatality rates.”

New York City has been in and out of a variety of lockdowns, of varying degrees of severity, for the better part of the last 9 months.