29 April 2020: COVID-Infected Staff Allowed to Work at NY Nursing Homes

Requiring NY Nursing Homes to Accept COVID Patients Caused Deaths

In addition to revealing a potential motive for why Governor Cuomo's administration put nursing home patients at risk with its reckless policy (fearing a surge in COVID-19 patients that could overwhelm hospitals predicted by the IHME model, which is proving to be far from accurate, the Cuomo administration effected a 'triage' policy, with nursing homes the designated losers), this article also reveals the state had fined several of the nursing homes at which it place infected coronavirus patients for unsanitary conditions as recently as earlier this year.

In other words, New York's state regulators already knew these facilities would place nursing home patients at extremely high risk because they had already faulted them for conditions that would be conducive to spreading a viral infection. Then New York state officials required these facilities to accept patients infected with the coronavirus. Then the same New York state officials refused to transfer patients the nursing homes, lacking the resources and environment needed to provide proper care, requested be moved to facilities that could.

New York let coronavirus-infected nurses work in upstate nursing home

This may be the second most disturbing news story to come out from New York. Here's the introduction:

The state Health Department allowed nurses and other staff who tested positive for the coronavirus to continue treating COVID-19 patients at an upstate nursing home, The Post has learned.

State officials signed off on the move during an April 10 conference call that excluded local officials from Steuben County, who protested the move, according to a document provided by the county government’s top administrator, Jack Wheeler.

At least 15 people have died at the Hornell Gardens nursing home in the tiny town of Hornell since the outbreak, according to county tallies. State records show just seven deaths across the county and include no data about this home.

Allowing staff known to have tested positive for carrying the deadly coronavirus and at high risk of being contagious continue working to provide care to nursing home patients is the equivalent of knowingly allowing a serial killer the freedom to move from victim to victim. This isn't just a reckless policy, it may qualify as either manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide on the part of those who gave the green light to make this happen.

State Ends Policy Allowing COVID-Positive Nursing Home Staffers to Work

It didn't take long for New York's public health officials to rescind their policy of allowing health care by coronavirus-infected nursing home staff after it was exposed. Meanwhile, the state's policy of requiring nursing homes to admit coronavirus-infected patients remains in force.

28 April 2020: Cuomo Claims He Didn't Know About Deadly Directive

Cuomo Claims He Didn’t Know About New York Rule Forcing Nursing Homes To Accept Elderly With COVID-19

Here's an excerpt from the article, after Governor Cuomo was asked about his administration's 25 March 2020 directive:

At a briefing on Monday, when Cuomo was asked about admitting coronavirus patients to nursing homes he claimed he was unaware of New York’s rule.

“It’s a good question. I don’t know,” Cuomo said.

There's not much other new information on Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 nursing home scandal in this article, but it indicates that both California and New Jersey implemented similar rules as New York's to force nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients. Separately, over 3,000 coronavirus infection-related deaths have occurred at nursing homes in New York.

27 April 2020: Cuomo Begins Casting Blame on Others

Cuomo blames his refusal to help coronavirus-hit nursing home on Navy protocol

Why didn't Governor Cuomo send uninfected nursing home patients to the U.S.S. Comfort, the naval hospital ship sent by the U.S. Navy to take the load off New York City's nursing homes? This article shows an early attempt to deflect personal culpability and blame the Navy's policies along with the management of the non-profit nursing home that was overloaded with coronavirus patients because of his administration's policies.

Governor Cuomo also "ducked" a question about why New York hadn't set up dedicated nursing homes to take in COVID patients discharged from hospitals. It wouldn't be until November 2020 before New York would set any such facilities up, months after they would have done the most good. Strangely, they kept it quiet even after they had.

26 April 2020: Governor Cuomo Doubles Down

Cuomo doubles down on ordering nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients

this article reveals how Governor Cuomo refuses to allow challenges to the state government's authority in requiring nursing homes to admit coronavirus-infected patients.

The governor — who himself has described nursing homes as a “feeding frenzy’’ for the deadly coronavirus — said that the facilities can’t challenge a state regulation forcing them to admit patients with the contagion.

But he insisted that nursing homes could transfer those ill with the virus to another facility if the centers lacked such things as quarantine space, proper protective equipment and staff.

Asked by a reporter at his daily briefing Sunday if there was anything contradictory about his statements, the governor replied, “No.”

How did that work in practice?

The CEO of a hard-hit Brooklyn nursing home, where 55 patients have died from the coronavirus, told The Post last week that he’d been warning state Health Department officials for weeks he had staffing and equipment issues — yet received little help.

“There is no way for us to prevent the spread under these conditions,’’ the head of the Cobble Hill Health Center, Donny Tuchman, wrote in an e-mail to the department on April 8.

He said he asked to move some patients to the makeshift wards at Manhattan’s Javits Center and aboard the city-docked USNS Comfort amid the pandemic, only to be told those two spots were receiving only patients from hospitals.

“I made specific requests to transfer patients, and it didn’t happen,’’ Tuchman told The Post. “There weren’t options.”

The article also reports that state health officials "conducted a focus study" of the facility and determined it had sufficient resources in their view to justify rejecting the nursing home's CEO's requests to transfer patients, finding they had plenty of masks and gloves. The article doesn't indicate what they thought of the staffing or other issues cited by the facility in their requests.

There's enough information here to indicate New York's top health officials were effectively implementing a triage strategy with the primary objective of reducing what they anticipated would be the peak load of coronavirus patients on hospitals directly at the expense of privately-run nursing homes, as confirmed by the transfers of patients known to be carriers of the coronavirus from hospitals to nursing homes, along with body bags. That the facilities they designated to take on overflow patients from hospitals went almost completely unused confirms they badly misjudged what the peak load would be.

25 April 2020: Like Fire in Dry Grass

Coronavirus spreads in a New York nursing home forced to take recovering patients

This article directly links coronavirus deaths in New York's nursing homes to the policy the state implemented a month earlier prohibiting the nursing homes from denying admission to contagious patients. The policy is described as "reckless and careless" by a health care worker.

24 April 2020: "Nobody's To Blame"

Cuomo: 'Nobody's to blame' for NY nursing home COVID-19 deaths

Phrased differently, Governor Cuomo denies personal responsibility for himself and his administration for any COVID-19 nursing home deaths. Also, what does this say about Governor Cuomo's 'investigation' when the governor has conveniently pre-determined its outcome?

23 April 2020: Disturbing News and Misplaced Priorities

Coronavirus patients admitted to Queens nursing home — with body bags

This is easily the most disturbing report to come out of New York with respect to Governor Cuomo's and his administration's coronavirus epidemic policies. Here's the introduction:

The first coronavirus patients admitted to a Queens nursing home under a controversial state mandate arrived along with some grim accessories — a supply of body bags, The Post has learned.

An executive at the facility — which was previously free of the deadly disease — said the bags were in the shipment of personal protective equipment received the same day the home was forced to begin treating two people discharged from hospitals with COVID-19.

“My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box so much heavier than the rest, he opened it,” the exec told The Post Thursday.

“The first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags.”

That's quite an indication what state officials expected would happen from the implementation of the Cuomo administration's policy. If that is indeed how the policy was implemented, it's no wonder Governor Cuomo is seeking to deflect attention away from it, which perhaps explains the next headline....

N.Y. Gov. Cuomo says state nursing homes will be investigated

But only privately-run nursing homes. Nursing homes run by the state of New York will not be investigated. Oddly enough, Governor Cuomo also did not initiate an investigation of his administration or its policies.

22 April 2020: No PPE for NY Nursing Homes

Gov. Cuomo says ‘it’s not our job’ to provide PPE to nursing homes

This article reveals Governor Cuomo's apparent contempt for elderly New Yorkers and confirms his administration saw no problem with diverting resources like protective personal equipment from the nursing home facilities the state regulates and which they knew were at very high risk to directly benefit state and local government employees. If you want to know what life would be like under a Medicare for All single-payer health care system, this should tell you everything you need to know about how the people who would run such a system would choose to allocate resources within it in making life-and-death decisions.

21 April 2020: The Death of Diana Mongiello

Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus nursing home policy proves tragic: Goodwin

Michael Goodwin's column explores how Governor Cuomo and his administration's policies of deliberate neglect cost the life of a great-grandmother, providing a human anecdote to go along with the cold, hard data of excessive deaths emerging from New York's nursing homes.

20 April 2020: Governor Cuomo Plays Dumb

Cuomo didn’t know coronavirus patients are being sent back to nursing homes

This is the first report where New York's media began actively challenging Governor Cuomo's and his administration on the actions they were taking during the epidemic in the state.

New York’s health commissioner on Monday defended a directive that requires nursing homes to readmit residents who’ve tested positive for the coronavirus — as Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed he didn’t know the policy was in place.

Cuomo was asked about the state’s policy on admitting or readmitting to nursing homes people who’d tested positive for COVID-19.

“That’s a good question, I don’t know,” the governor said.

Cuomo’s startling admission came days after the state revealed last week that at least 3,316 people in nursing homes and adult care facilities had died of coronavirus at their residences or in hospitals across the state.

Based on the timeline of events and news reporting, our view is that Governor Cuomo's claim is almost certainly false. We also think it is highly unlikely that New York's public health officials would implement such an obviously high risk policy that so contradicted their previous policy and statements made by the governor on their own without the governor's tacit, if not explicit, approval.

18 April 2020: NY DOH's Initiates Systematic Collection of COVID Death Data for Nursing Home Residents

Cuomo admin tracked nursing home deaths months before incomplete DOH report

This report clarifies the timing of when the Cuomo administration began systematically collecting data on the COVID-related deaths of nursing home residents.

A copy of the directive obtained by The Post is dated April 18, 2020 — about eleven weeks before a health department report that excluded the number of nursing home residents who died of coronavirus outside of their facilities.

18 April 2020 marks when New York's Department of Health began its daily collection of data on the COVID deaths among New York's nursing home residents, but the department also took action to collect the same data going back to 1 March 2020.

State Department of Health spokesman Gary Holmes told The Post in a Wednesday statement that the agency “has received HERDS information daily from more than 1,000 long term care facilities and more than 200 hospitals since the start of this pandemic.”

“In April 2020 we asked for additional information to provide a more specific clinical picture, and as part of that correspondence we asked all facilities to provide that same level of information retrospectively to March 1,” the spokesman said.

This entry was added to the historic timeline after this new information came to light on 8 April 2021.

15 April 2020: Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Issues a Potentially Deadly Directive

Michigan Gov. Whitmer signs EO to protect people working, living in long-term care facilities

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's Executive Order 2020-50 was issued on 15 April 2020. Here is how it was reported:

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed Executive Order 2020-50 to establish procedures in long-term care facilities to protect the health and safety of both their employees and residents.

At many of Michigan’s long-term care facilities residents and employees live and work in confined spaces. There is also a lack of personal protective equipment. A positive coronavirus (COVID-19) test can threaten the safety of the entire facility.

"The spread of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on residents and employees at Michigan's long-term care facilities," Whitmer said. “That's why I am taking action to implement policies that will protect the most people we can in those facilities. I know this is a hard time for Michigan's elderly residents, their families, and the hardworking staff who work with them every day. I will continue to do everything in my power to protect Michiganders everywhere from the spread of this virus. We will get through this together."

That sounds like noble intentions, but there are aspects of Executive Order 2020-50 that echo New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive. Here's a directly relevant excerpt from Section III of the executive order:

5. Once a long-term care facility resident who has been hospitalized due to onset of one or more of the principal symptoms of COVID-19 becomes medically stable and eligible for discharge in the judgment of the resident’s medical providers, a hospital must discharge the resident in accordance with the following protocol:

1. If the long-term care facility where the resident resided prior to the onset of one or more of the principal symptoms of COVID-19 ("facility of residence") has a dedicated unit and provides appropriate PPE to the direct-care employees who staff the dedicated unit, the hospital must discharge the resident to their facility of residence for placement in the dedicated unit, provided there is available bed capacity.
2. If a discharge in accordance with section 5(a) of this part is not available, the hospital must discharge the resident to a regional hub, provided there is available bed capacity.
3. If a discharge in accordance with section 5(a) or 5(b) of this part is not available, the hospital must transfer the resident to any alternate care facility with available bed capacity in accordance with the following protocol:
1. Any alternate care facility within the state that has available bed capacity to receive the resident must accept a transfer authorized by this order.
2. An alternate care facility must discharge a long-term care facility resident to the facility of residence as soon as capacity allows. If the facility of residence lacks available capacity, the alternate care facility must transfer the resident to a regional hub. If a regional hub receives a resident under this part, it must transfer the resident to the facility of residence as soon as capacity allows.

6. For any transfer or discharge of a resident, the transferring or discharging entity must ensure that the resident’s advance directive accompanies the resident and must disclose the existence of any advance directive to medical control at the time medical control assistance is requested.

7. Any long-term care facility that has a dedicated unit and provides appropriate PPE to the direct-care employees who staff the dedicated unit must admit anyone that it would normally admit as a resident, regardless of whether the individual has recently been discharged from a hospital treating COVID-19 patients.

Note the repeated use of the word "must", which requires alternate care facilities and long-term care facilities like nursing homes to admit the patient transferred under this protocol. As a result, although the "medically stable" condition justifying the transfer a COVID patient could potentially mean they were still contagious, that would be a path for spreading COVID infections at the facilities receiving them.

14 April 2020: Governor Cuomo Claims Concern Over Nursing Home Deaths

Cuomo Raises Concern Over Growing Number Of Nursing Home Deaths

Governor Cuomo used Twitter to share some COVID fatality statistics:

We lost 778 New Yorkers yesterday to this vicious virus.

We mourn each of them.

Remember: Our actions determine our destiny.

We flattened the curve and we must keep it up.

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 14, 2020

A short excerpt from a report on Governor Cuomo's statements:

He expressed concern that a large number of those deaths are coming from nursing homes in the state. Of the 778 deaths, 133 were from long-term care facilities.

At 17% of the total announced deaths for the day, nursing homes were contributing an outsized share of COVID-19 deaths in New York.

8 April 2020: New York's First COVID Wave Begins Receding

Leading Model: New York Among 7 States Projected To Have Hit Its Peak

The IHME model indicates New York has moved past its peak in the number of daily new cases.

Ordinarily, that would be a good thing. Except, Governor Cuomo had taken an action by which he intended to avoid the spectacle of having pictures of sick New Yorkers not able to get medical treatment in the media. Instead, the Cuomo administration’s 25 March 2020 directive all but ensured the state's death toll from its coronavirus epidemic would no longer be small.

8 April 2020: New York DOH Won't Release COVID Nursing Home Death Data

State won't release Covid-19 data

We inserted this entry into the timeline on 16 April 2021 because the situation it describes came up in the context of a later timeline entry on that date. This article is one of the first to describe the stonewalling tactics the Cuomo administration and the New York Department of Health under Commissioner Howard Zucker would use to conceal the full extent of COVID-related deaths among nursing home residents during the period in which the administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. Here is an excerpt:

The state Health Department also refuses to identify by name the nursing homes where Covid-19 cases and deaths have occurred.

"We want to protect the privacy of the people in the nursing homes," said state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker on Wednesday at Gov. Andrew Cuomo's daily Covid-19 briefing.

The Buffalo News has filed a Freedom of Information Law request for that data.

This article was originally published on 11 April 2020, so the daily COVID-19 briefing to which it refers occurred on Wednesday, 8 April 2020, which is the relevant date of interest for this entry.

Ultimately, the New York Department of Health was sued under the state's Freedom Of Information Law and was compelled to release the data following a 3 February 2021 ruling against Cuomo administration.

6 April 2020: The Models Stop Projecting Disaster

America’s most influential coronavirus model just revised its estimates downward. But not every model agrees.

The IHME model revised its estimates for New York and the U.S. downward, indicating the peak Governor Cuomo feared would overwhelm New York's hospitals was not going to come anywhere close to what it had previously projected.

You might think that the new information might soon lead Governor Cuomo and his administration to rescind its 25 March 2020 directive forcing nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients without any testing to tell if they were still contagious. But if it had, we wouldn't have needed to dedicate a blog to covering Governor Cuomo's COVID nursing home scandals.

2 April 2020: Hospital Lobby Scores Legal Immunity from COVID Deaths

GNYHA Secures Immunity for Hospitals and Workers from Liability in Connection with COVID-19

The Greater New York Hospital Group (GNYHG) is a health care industry lobby whose members include hospitals and nursing home operators. The GNYHG issued a press release proclaiming it had successfully negotiated a deal with the Cuomo administration that would shield its members from lawsuits related to the COVID deaths of patients and residents. Here is the text of what the group's CEO, Kenneth E. Raske, and its Chief Legal Officer, Laura Alfredo, communicated:

I am very pleased to report that the Emergency Disaster Treatment Protection Act is included in the State fiscal year 2021 final budget. GNYHA drafted and aggressively advocated for this legislation. You and your heroic workers have enough to agonize over without having to worry about liability for decisions and actions made under extraordinarily challenging circumstances.

We are deeply grateful to Governor Cuomo and the Legislature for hearing our concerns and working with us so effectively. Once this legislation is enacted into law, we will have collectively eased at least part of your frontline health care workers’ massive challenges.

The bill grants qualified immunity to hospitals, nursing homes, administrators, board members, physicians, nurses, and many other providers from civil and criminal liability arising from decisions, acts, and omissions occurring from the beginning of the Governor’s emergency declaration on March 7 through its expiration, and covers liability stemming from the care of individuals with and without COVID-19.

The immunity will not apply to intentional criminal misconduct, gross negligence, and other such acts but makes clear that acts, omissions, and decisions resulting from a resource or staffing shortage will be covered. The immunity will apply where the liability arises from harm or damages in connection with providing treatment that was impacted by a facility's or professional's decisions or activities in response to or as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and in support of the State’s directives.

This press release was issued eight days after the Cuomo administration's issued its deadly 25 March 2020 directive forcing nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals without any testing to determine if they might still be contagious.

That timing means the influential lobbying group were awarded with legal immunity from patient and resident COVID deaths within one week of the deadly directive going into effect. To put that in perspective, the median time from initial exposure to death for COVID-19 is about 17 days, so they scored the immunity deal about 10 days before any infectious patients dumped from hospitals into nursing homes might contribute to the deaths of nursing home residents who had no previous exposure.

Note: We inserted this article into the timeline on 18 March 2021, thanks to the intrepid reporting of Josefa Velasquez of The City, who broke the story the FBI was specifically investigating how the GNYHG's prized legal immunity from COVID deaths made its way into the New York state budget. Previously, the earliest entry in the timeline related to Governor Cuomo's COVID legal immunity deal with the hospital and nursing home lobby group was on 3 May 2020.