28 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Complains of Political Heat and Dodges Questions on Sunday Talkshows

28 June 2020 Sunday Morning Interviews

Two more reports, closely related in covering Governor Cuomo's Sunday morning interview rounds:

• Gov. Cuomo complains of ‘political heat’ over coronavirus nursing home deaths
• Cuomo dodges repeated questions on whether New York nursing homes are safe

Perhaps Governor Cuomo doesn't appreciate that dodging questions doesn't reduce political heat but increases it instead.

28 June 2020: Cuomo Claims Nursing Home Seniors Are "Safer" from COVID Than Seniors' Own Homes

Andrew Cuomo: Elderly New Yorkers 'safer' from coronavirus in nursing homes than in own homes

This report covers Governor Cuomo's latest attempt to minimize the negative consequences of his coronavirus nursing home policies. Here, it is important to note that the Governor does not specify if seniors in nursing homes would have safer before he finally terminated New York's directive to force nursing homes to admit both infected and potentially infected patients without testing on 10 May 2020, nor how long after that policy ended before the claim might have become true, nor if he believes the claim might only be true now because his previous policies already killed off the most vulnerable residents in New York's nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

27 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Reviews Early Drafts of His Pandemic Leadership Book

This timeline entry is based on information presented in a New York Times article published on 31 March 2021. The following excerpt provides a documented status of the book project:

Mr. Cuomo also utilized the resources of his office — from his inner circle to far more junior personnel — to help with the manuscript. In late June and early July, for example, a top aide to the governor, Stephanie Benton, twice asked assistants to print portions of the draft of the book, and deliver them to Mr. Cuomo at the Executive Mansion in Albany, where he lives.

One of Ms. Benton’s directives came on June 27, the same day that Ms. DeRosa convened an impromptu teleconference with several other top advisers to discuss the Health Department draft report.

The timing of this event is significant because several of Governor Cuomo's top advisers were also involved in doctoring a study produced by New York's Department of Health investigating whether the Cuomo administration's deadly deadly 25 March 2020 directive contributed to COVID deaths among New York nursing home residents.

Mr. Cuomo leaned on his top aide, Melissa DeRosa, for assistance. She attended video meetings with publishers, and helped him edit early drafts of the book. But there was also another, more pressing edit underway at the same time.

An impending Health Department report threatened to disclose a far higher number of nursing home deaths related to the coronavirus than the Cuomo administration had previously made public. Ms. DeRosa and other top aides expressed concern about the higher death toll, and, after their intervention, the number — which had appeared in the second sentence of the report — was removed from the final version.

Had the study reported the full extent of the COVID deaths among nursing home residents, Governor Cuomo's coronavirus pandemic performance would have been tarnished, which hurt the sales of the book promoting his leadership during 2020's coronavirus pandemic.

Here is where other items mentioned in these passages appear as key events in the timeline:

• 15 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Starts Writing Book on His Pandemic "Leadership"
• 6 July 2020: The NY DOH Report "Factors Associated with Nursing Home Infections and Fatalities in New York State During the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis"
• 11 August 2020: Cuomo Administration Stonewalling on COVID Deaths of Nursing Home Residents
• 16 October 2020: Opinion - Cuomo's Pandemic Leadership Book Undermined by Critical Omissions
• 11 February 2021: Team Cuomo Claims They Hid Data to Avoid Trump DOJ
• 31 March 2021: How the Timing of Governor Cuomo's Book Deal Fits into NY's COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandal

26 June 2020: Cuomo's Deadly Directive Declared "A Mistake" in Congressional Testimony

New York's Covid nursing home policy was 'a mistake,' expert testifies

This report covers the testimony of Harvard health policy professor David C. Grabowski before the U.S. House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee's Health Subcommittee. Governor Cuomo has previously rejected requests to testify before Congress about his administration's coronavirus nursing home policies (see the second entry for 22 June 2020).

25 June 2020: White House Calls Out Cuomo's Deadly Directive, Cuomo Called Out for Lying About Nursing Home Deaths, CNN Shreds Credibility by Endorsing Governor Cuomo's Policies

NY governor is ‘alone to blame’ for forcing COVID-positive seniors into nursing homes, feds say

This report describes the response of the White House to Governor Cuomo's attempt to blame them for nursing home deaths that occurred in New York.

Churchill: On nursing homes, Cuomo won't admit the truth

This op-ed from an upper New York state newspaper weighs in on Governor Cuomo's campaign to deny responsibility for the policies that both endangered and killed so many residents of nursing homes and other assisted living facilities in New York.

CNN's Chris Cuomo lauds brother in panned interview: 'You're both awful'

This article describes the negative bipartisan reaction to the open display of partisan support favoring Governor Cuomo on CNN, where Governor Andrew Cuomo has been frequently interviewed by his brother during his prime-time newscast throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The 24 June 2020 broadcast was the first in which the journalist Cuomo asked the Governor to address any question about his administration's coronavirus nursing home policy scandal. Here's the introduction to the report:

CNN's Chris Cuomo was mocked after lauding his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), during an interview that one media publication called "a close approximation of a campaign endorsement," with the anchor declaring he was "wowed" by the governor's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The failure of CNN to present even a minimal level of professional objectivity in its reporting has damaged the news organization's credibility, with the governor's brother apparently having a large influence over shaping the network's coverage to be as favorable as it can to the benefit of Governor Cuomo, which has become a classic example of how a journalist's clear conflict of interest damages the public interest in addition to the reputation of their organization and the profession.

23 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Blames Nursing Home Staffs for Nursing Home Deaths

Gov. Cuomo blames sick nursing home staffers for infecting residents

This article reports on Governor Cuomo's latest attempt to avoid responsibility for his administration's deadly policies of both forcing New York nursing homes to admit patients without testing to verify if they might be active carriers for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and to allow nursing home staff members known to have been infected to continue working (see the entries for 29 April 2020 above), where they might spread the deadly infection among vulnerable residents. He's also doubled down again on the first policy:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday blamed sick nursing home staffers for infecting residents at the facilities — and doubled down on a controversial state order barring the facilities from turning away coronavirus-positive patients, saying, “It wasn’t a mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t a mistake because … you didn’t want to leave a senior citizen in the hospital for two weeks if you didn’t need to be in a hospital bed for two weeks,” Cuomo said on MSNBC of his Health Department’s widely scrutinized March 25 mandate, which may have fueled more than 6,000 confirmed and presumed COVID-19 deaths in New York.

The governor added, “By the time a person was transferred after nine or 10 days, they were no longer contagious and what all the data says is, the reason you had infections in nursing homes were because the staff brought in the infection.”

“You look at the communities that had the high infection rate overall — those were the communities that had a high infection rate — so it is that the staff got infected. They came to work and they brought in the infection.”

Previous reports have indicated that if a nursing home had a week's supply of personal protective equipment (or PPE) for staff members, meaning masks and gloves, state health officials considered that sufficient to protect both residents and staff members from the potential for infection (see entries for 26 April 2020 and 5 May 2020).

Meanwhile, nursing home staff members are the latest target in Governor Cuomo's political campaign to distract from his administration's leading role in spreading coronavirus infections in New York's nursing homes, where he has previously targeted the CDC, the FDA, the federal government, national and international health experts, nursing home operators, President Trump, Florida, and also the New York Post for blame in the state's nursing home deaths.

22 June 2020: 25% of U.S. COVID Deaths in Nursing Homes, Governors Cuomo (NY) and Murphy (NJ) Refuse to Come Clean

In U.S., 1 in 4 COVID-19 Deaths Are Residents of Nursing Homes

Grim statistics from the Associated Press' analysis of federally regulated nursing homes, which we should point out does not include assisted living facilities that are regulated by state governments (highlighted emphasis ours):

Nursing home residents account for nearly 1 in 10 of all the coronavirus cases in the United States and more than a quarter of the deaths, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data released Thursday.

As federal data collection becomes more robust, a clearer picture is emerging of the ravages of COVID-19 in nursing homes. About 1.4 million older and medically frail people live in such facilities, a tiny share of the American population that has borne a crushing burden from the pandemic. Most residents have been in lockdown since early March, isolated from families and friends, even in death.

Nationwide, nursing homes reported nearly 179,000 suspected or confirmed cases among residents and 29,497 deaths. The latest figures include about 95% of nursing homes.

AP’s analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that nearly half of the more than 15,000 nursing homes have reported suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of June 7. About 1 in 5 facilities — or 21% — have reported deaths.

The state of New York, which is known to be underreporting COVID-19 nursing home-related deaths in its official count of at least 6,300 deaths, would account for at least 21% of these deaths. New Jersey, which copied New York's deadly coronavirus nursing home policy, adds another 6,180 lab-confirmed deaths to the national total accounts for another 21% of all COVID-19 nursing home deaths in the U.S.

NY’s Cuomo, NJ’s Murphy ignore request to explain controversial nursing home policies

Both New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy are rejecting requests to testify before the U.S. House of Representative's Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis about the policies their states implemented forcing nursing homes to admit COVID-19 infected patients, claiming the request is "pure politics" and that the committee lacks oversight authority.

We will note that rejecting the requests to testify before Congress will also limit their exposure to legal liabilities that might arise from it.

21 June 2020: Elected New York Legislators Want Investigation of Cuomo Nursing Home Policies

NYS lawmakers still want hearings on Covid-19 nursing home deaths

Although New York's assembly is controlled by Governor Cuomo's political party, there are continuing bipartisan calls for public hearings into the Cuomo administration's policies that led to so many deaths in the state's nursing homes and assisted living facilities. This article notes that many of these deaths fell heavily among minorities.

20 June 2020: Editorial - Governor Cuomo's "Big Lie"

Andrew Cuomo’s big lie on nursing homes and The Post

This New York Post editorial calls Governor Cuomo out for his dishonest attempts to deflect blame for his administration's deadly coronavirus nursing home policy, which the governor is trying to make appear to be a partisan effort. As the Post's editors make clear, the news coverage demonstrates that's not the case, which you can confirm for yourself by simply scrolling up and reviewing the stories we've linked throughout our coverage.

19 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Claims Criticism of Deadly Nursing Home Policy is "Pure Politics"

Gov. Cuomo: Criticism of NY nursing home deaths a 'shiny object,' 'pure politics'

This report of a WAMC radio interview Governor Cuomo gave on Friday, 19 June 2020 shows the governor's continuing attempts to avoid accountability in establishing New York's deadly coronavirus nursing home policies. He also blames the federal government and parts of the media for his problems, the latter for focusing on his administration's nursing home scandal.

18 June 2020: Opinion - Governor Cuomo's Expanding Search for COVID Nursing Home Death Scapegoats

Op-Ed: Andrew Cuomo: Searching for Scapegoats To Blame for His Deadly Coronavirus Order

This op-ed lists many the individuals and groups who Governor Cuomo has been attempting to blame for the unchecked spreading of deadly coronavirus infections in New York's nursing homes in order to distract from his and his administration's role in the scandal.

17 June 2020: Cuomo Claims Sick COVID Patients Dumped in Nursing Homes "Probably Not Contagious"

Cuomo: Coronavirus patients put in nursing homes ‘probably not contagious’

This report shows the latest gyrations by the Cuomo administration to avoid accountability for deaths that resulted from its "reverse triage" policy of moving coronavirus-infected patients from hospitals to nursing homes to make more beds available in the hospitals. Here, the administration is seeking to blame hypothetical "asymptomatic workers" for both introducing and spreading coronavirus infections in nursing homes, despite the state moving over 4,300 such patients into nursing homes.

The report also indicates Cuomo administration officials are now apparently willing to throw New York Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker under the bus in attempting to shift blame away from the Governor's office for issuing the infamous 25 March 2020 directive forcing nursing homes to admit COVID-19 positive patients.

17 June 2020: No One in Cuomo Administration Willing to Admit Who Wrote, Approved Deadly Directive

Cuomo silent on who approved coronavirus nursing home policy

This report demonstrates both a lack of candor and transparency on the part of Governor Cuomo concerning how he and his administration came to adopt its deadly coronavirus nursing home policy and follows up ProPublica's "Fire Through Dry Grass" article from 16 June 2020, which describes the motive of Governor Cuomo and New York's public health officials had, which we'll emphasize here:

And a Columbia University expert, Dr. Charles Branas, told ProPublica that the March 25 directive may have increased the state’s COVID-19 death toll by an as-yet-unknown order of magnitude and cited an Associated Press estimate on the number of coronavirus patients who were admitted to nursing homes as a result of the order.

“If you introduce 4,500 people sick with a potentially lethal disease into a vulnerable and notoriously imperfectly monitored population, people are apt to die,” said Branas, chairman of the Epidemiology Department at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.

Branas also said the since-abandoned policy “looks like it was intended as a ‘reverse triage’ strategy to clear acute and critical care hospital beds, regardless of whether those beds had people with COVID-19 or not.”

Branas' assessment of the Cuomo administration's motives aligns with our previous analysis, where we described the policy they adopted for the purpose of transferring coronavirus-infected patients from hospitals to nursing homes to avoid overwhelming the hospitals' capacity as an "emergency triage strategy", but Branas' "reverse triage" terminology better and more precisely describes the strategy.

16 June 2020: Analysis - How Cuomo's Directive Led to Excess COVID Deaths at NY Nursing Homes, National Nursing Home Deaths Top 50,000

“Fire Through Dry Grass”: Andrew Cuomo Saw COVID-19’s Threat to Nursing Homes. Then He Risked Adding to It.

This report starts with the story of a nursing home with 120 residents in upper New York state that went from having no COVID-19 patients, to being forced to admit one patient known to be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus under the Cuomo administration's policy on 3 April 2020, to recording 18 deaths at the facility from COVID-19 six weeks later. It also tells the story of another nursing home in the same New York county that defied Governor Cuomo's directive and refused to admit any COVID-19 infected patients, which would go on to not record any COVID-19 cases or deaths over the same period and points out the county's hospitals were never at risk of being overwhelmed by the epidemic, making forced patient transfers unnecessary. The report goes on to identify multiple points of failure on the part of the Cuomo administration and describes the developing acrimony as state officials seek to escape accountability.

As U.S. Nursing-Home Deaths Reach 50,000, States Ease Lockdowns

The Wall Street Journal estimates deaths in U.S. nursing homes account for over 40% of the 116,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S. They also think that's an undercount because of how some states are reporting these deaths. See the entries for 26 May 2020 for more discussion on that topic as it relates to New York.

15 June 2020: General Recognition of COVID Forecast Model Failures

Forecasting for COVID-19 has failed

This analysis on the International Institute of Forecasters blog examines the multiple failures in public policy that have resulted from following poor forecasting models. The following passage is directly applicable to what happened in New York, but certainly applies in other states that aped its policies:

Experienced modelers drew early on parallels between COVID-19 and the Spanish flu [2] that caused >50 million deaths with mean age at death being 28. We all lament the current loss of life. However, as of June 8, total fatalities are ~410,000 with median age ~80 and typically multiple comorbidities.

Predictions for hospital and ICU bed requirements were also entirely misinforming. Public leaders trusted models (sometimes even black boxes without disclosed methodology) inferring massively overwhelmed health care capacity (Table 1) [3]. However, eventually very few hospitals were stressed, for a couple of weeks. Most hospitals maintained largely empty wards, waiting for tsunamis that never came. The general population was locked and placed in horror-alert to save the health system from collapsing. Tragically, many health systems faced major adverse consequences, not by COVID-19 cases overload, but for very different reasons. Patients with heart attacks avoided visiting hospitals for care [4], important treatments (e.g. for cancer) were unjustifiably delayed [5], mental health suffered [6]. With damaged operations, many hospitals started losing personnel, reducing capacity to face future crises (e.g. a second wave). With massive new unemployment, more people may lose health insurance. The prospects of starvation and of lack of control for other infectious diseases (like tuberculosis, malaria, and childhood communicable diseases for which vaccination is hindered by the COVID-19 measures) are dire [7,8].

We think it will take years to fully learn the lessons the flawed coronavirus models have taught.

15 June 2020: Evidence of Governor Cuomo, Staff Writing Book on His Pandemic "Leadership" as Early as Mid-June 2020

This timeline entry is based on information presented in a New York Times article published on 31 March 2021. That report identifies "mid-June" as the period when Governor Cuomo and members of his staff began writing a book proclaiming his "leadership" during 2020's coronavirus pandemic. Here's the relevant portion of the article:

The book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic,” was a dramatic retelling of the battle against the virus in a state where nearly 50,000 people have died. It would garner Mr. Cuomo a fleeting spot on the best-seller list.

Emails and an early draft of Mr. Cuomo’s book obtained by The New York Times indicate that the governor was writing it as early as mid-June, relying on a cadre of trusted aides and junior staffers for everything from full-scale edits to minor clerical work, potentially running afoul of state laws prohibiting use of public resources for personal gain.

This is the earliest entry in the timeline related to what would prove to be Governor Cuomo's ill-fated book project. To see where it appears later in the timeline, search "book" in the Search This Blog feature!

14 June 2020: Cuomo Administration Shorted PPE Supplies for Nursing and Group Homes

Watchdog tells feds NY shorted group homes on masks, gowns during height of virus

This report follows the the story of a complaint filed by Disability Rights New York, which it identifies as a "federally funded nonprofit watchdog" on 7 April 2020 regarding how state officials were allocating personal protective equipment among group homes, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities that provide care for disabled residents in New York. Here's an excerpt describing the environment these facilities were put under by the Cuomo administration's policies for allocating scarce resources like personal protective equipment (PPE):

Operators of group homes at the apex of the virus – March through May -- had to scrounge, scouring pharmacies for masks, often paying price-gouging costs, pleading with county disaster offices, and wearing homemade face coverings and disposable protection that sometimes had to be reused, according to interviews with Disability Rights New York, group home operators and their residents’ advocates.

The Cuomo administration appears to have prioritized the interests of public hospitals, which are run by officials appointed by state or local governments, at the expense of all other health care facilities in the state of New York during the state's 2020 coronavirus epidemic, which were apparently viewed as dumping grounds by the state's public health officials. Like the elderly at the state's nursing homes, the disabled are victims of systematic discrimination against them by Cuomo administration.

13 June 2020: Cuomo's Claims Blaming CDC Guidance for NY COVID Nursing Home Deaths "Mostly False"

New York’s nursing home policy was not fully in line with CDC

This fact check from the PolitiFact directly challenges Governor Cuomo's claims that his administration's nursing home policies were fully compliant with the CDC's guidelines. In addition to the guidance we've pointed to earlier in this timeline, they cite the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Report issued a week before the Cuomo administration adopted its policy forcing nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients, which specifically recommended that "in the context of rapidly escalating COVID-19 outbreaks in much of the United States, it is critical that long-term care facilities implement active measures to prevent introduction of COVID-19."

PolitiFact concludes Governor Cuomo's claims his policies followed CDC guidance are "mostly false".

12 June 2020: National Attention for Cuomo Nursing Home Scandal - What Guidance Did the CDC Provide States for Nursing Homes?

Rep. Steve Scalise questions Dem governors on decision to send coronavirus patients to nursing homes

The move to initiate an independent, federal investigation of what happened in New York's nursing homes and other states' assisted living facilities that copied Governor Cuomo's policies is gaining some steam. This article is also noteworthy in that Representative Scalise updates the death tolls for several states:

"The decision of several governors to essentially mandate COVID positive patients go back to their nursing homes ended up being a death sentence," Scalise said in a briefing for the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. "New York has suffered 6,318 deaths in nursing homes. New Jersey, 6,327. Compare that to Florida -- a retirement state -- 1,454. On a per capita basis, nursing homes deaths in New York are 500 percent higher than Florida and New Jersey is 1,120 percent higher than Florida."

Our analysis of what happened in New Jersey's nursing homes and assisted living facilities is here.

Another interesting note:

Cuomo has defended his directive as in line with guidance from the Trump administration and notes that other states did the same thing. But Scalise noted that the Trump administration changed its guidance in mid-March to caution against sending coronavirus patients to nursing homes "not prepared" to handle the disease. New York's policy remained in place until May 10.

Here is the CDC's original guidance for nursing homes from 13 March 2020. Here is a copy of the guidance that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is the federal agency that oversees nursing homes, issued on 17 March 2020, which explicitly states the guidance:

What to Do with Residents with Confirmed or Suspected COVID-19 Diagnoses

CMS’s guidance also instructs nursing homes with residents suspected of having COVID-19 to contact their local health department and transfer the affected resident to a hospital if they do not have an airborne infection isolation room and the symptoms warrant such transfer. Nursing homes that are asked to accept residents diagnosed with COVID-19 from a hospital may accept the residents as long as the facility can follow then-current CDC guidance for Transmission-Based Precautions. This guidance is changing rapidly as the CDC learns more about the COVID-19 virus and adapts protocols accordingly. Facilities are advised to continue normal admissions, and if possible, dedicate a unit/wing to serve as a step-down unit where such residents remain for 14 days with no symptoms for any resident coming or returning from hospitals where a case of COVID-19 is/was present.

The Cuomo administration removed the discretion of nursing homes had for accepting known coronavirus-infected patients in its infamous 25 March 2020 directive, disregarding the guidance issued by the federal agency that directly oversees nursing homes.

11 June 2020: Cuomo Retreats from Failed Staff Testing Policy, Keeps Blocking Families from NY Nursing Homes

Team Cuomo quietly retreats from yet another nursing-home mistake

Two days after nursing homes pushed back, the Cuomo administration has backed off its ineffective staff testing policies for nursing homes.

Reopen NY: Governor Cuomo calls no visitation at nursing homes 'better than death'

Showing once again the open hypocrisy of his coronavirus nursing home policies, Governor Cuomo is continuing to prevent family members from visiting their family members in assisted living facilities to keep residents from the risk of being exposed to deadly coronavirus infections. But remember, he and his administration thought it was A-OK to transfer 100% known-to-be-infected patients to those facilities and to allow 100% know-to-be-infected staff members to work at them, which ensured residents would become infected.

10 June 2020: Opinion - Cuomo Policies Failing NY Nursing Homes

Gov. Cuomo is still failing New York’s nursing homes

Indeed. This is an opinion piece by Elaine Healy, MD, a practicing geriatrician and nursing-home medical director. She picks up on many of themes in the previous entry and emphasizes how arbitrary and often counterproductive the Cuomo administration's policies for nursing homes have been in practice.

9 June 2020: Nursing Homes Testing Staff But Get No Results, Cuomo Administration Not Counting Probable COVID Deaths

Nursing home groups want Cuomo to scrap staff coronavirus testing policy

It's the reason why nursing home groups want to scrap New York's mandated test regime for their employees that makes this report highly relevant to Governor Cuomo's handling of policies for nursing homes during the state's coronavirus epidemic. In one nursing home cited in the report, all staff members have been tested four times during the last three weeks, as required under Governor Cuomo's policy, but they have yet to see a single result from any of that testing, making all that testing useless for making decisions about how to protect both staff members and nursing home residents from infections.

New York State Is Not Counting Probable Covid Deaths

Since this article is posted by Gothamist on a page that features frequent updates, you may need to scroll down for the story. Governor Cuomo has adopted a policy that both deviates from the CDC's guidelines and is hiding the full extent of how deadly the coronavirus epidemic has been throughout the state of New York. Since the Cuomo administration appears to be arbitrarily following CDC guidelines, this latest inconsistency blows yet another hole in the governor's claim that his deadly COVID nursing home policy was compelled by CDC guidelines.

7 June 2020: The Human Cost of a "Crushed" Curve

Cuomo, under fire for coronavirus response, declares New York 'crushed' the curve

This article covers a Twitter message Governor Cuomo issued. Here's the text of the governor's tweet:

“We did the impossible. On Monday NYC will open phase one. We didn’t just flatten the curve — we crushed it. #NYTough"

Recall that the goal of "flattening the curve" was meant to keep hospitals from exceeding their capacity. In his panic to avoid that situation, Governor Cuomo "crushed" the curve by sending thousands of coronavirus-infected patients out of hospitals and into nursing homes and assisted living facilities for the elderly where the infection spread and killed thousands, all while using just a tiny fraction of all the additional capacity that was specifically added to New York's health care system to cope with the epidemic.

4 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Caught in a Self-Made Trap

Cuomo still stands by coronavirus nursing home order despite death toll

This report covers what Governor Cuomo said in a radio interview. Here's an excerpt from the New York Post's coverage:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday yet again doubled down on his decision to send coronavirus patients to nursing homes from hospitals — despite it potentially factoring in to more than 5,000 deaths.

The governor reiterated a March 25 health department mandate that required all nursing homes to accept residents who tested positive for COVID-19.

“So the choice is, leave a person in a hospital bed for two weeks until they test negative, or send them to a nursing home that can handle it and quarantine them and isolate them,” Cuomo said in an interview with Jay Oliver on Long Island News Radio.

“The nursing home is a better choice for that senior person, especially when you’re in a time when you need the hospital beds for people who are going to die without a ventilator.”

In many ways, Governor Cuomo's statements reflect his political and legal plight - he can neither afford to acknowledge the failure of judgment that led to his choice to implement the state's deadly policy without jeopardizing his political future, nor can he acknowledge his responsibility for actions that appear to qualify as criminally negligent homicide in New York or as involuntary manslaughter under federal law.

2 June 2020: A Deeper Look at National COVID Nursing Home Deaths

More than 40,000 coronavirus deaths tied to US nursing homes

This report is more comprehensive than the count released by CMS yesterday, including deaths that have occurred in assisted care facilities in addition to federal regulated nursing homes. The data still undercounts New York's contribution because of the state's deceptive death accounting practices. The figure also combines the deaths of residents and staff at nursing homes and other assisted living facilities, which we know from New Jersey's data is predominantly made up of the deaths of the residents of these facilities.

1 June 2020: Families to Stay Locked Out, Federal Stats on COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Cuomo administration won't say when nursing home visits will resume

Since 7 March 2020, the Cuomo administration has blocked family members from visiting relatives living in New York's nursing homes. Originally presented as a protective measure for nursing home residents from coronavirus infections, this policy also worked to prevent the discovery of the extent to which infected patients were being placed in these facilities to expose residents to the risk of infections in the following weeks.

Nearly 26,000 nursing home coronavirus deaths reported to feds

This Associated Press report provides partial national level data on the number of coronavirus deaths at nursing homes in the U.S. Here's an excerpt:

Federal health authorities have received reports of nearly 26,000 nursing home residents dying from COVID-19, according to materials prepared for the nation’s governors. That number is partial and likely to go higher.

A letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports more than 60,000 cases of coronavirus illness among nursing home residents. A copy of the letter and an accompanying chart were provided to The Associated Press.

The numbers, which had been promised by the end of May, are partial. The letter said the data are based on reports received from about 80% of the nation’s 15,400 nursing homes.

The data applies only to federally regulated nursing homes, which excludes assisted living facilities regulated by state governments. The data also only covers the period through 24 May 2020 for the portion of nursing homes reporting deaths of their residents. Back on 9 May 2020, AP reported a similar figure for the nation, with New York's official nursing home death count at 5,300, but that's with the state's public health officials deliberately misclassifying the deaths of nursing home residents that occurred outside of the nursing homes where they resided when they were transferred to hospitals at the ends of their lives.

The numbers being reported by CMS will be much harder for the Cuomo administration to "cook", since they are focusing on reporting coronavirus-related deaths of people who were residing at nursing homes during the last several months.