19 February 2021: Inside the Numbers - How Many COVID Nursing Home Deaths Are Attributable to Cuomo's Deadly Directive?

Report links controversial nursing home directive to COVID-19 deaths

This report describes the correlation the nonpartisan Empire Center for Public Policy found between COVID patients admitted to New York nursing homes and subsequent COVID deaths of nursing home residents:

The Empire Center analysis found that each new admission of a COVID-positive patient correlated with .09 additional deaths, with a margin of error of plus or minus 0.05. It also found that admitting any number of new COVID-positive patients was associated with an average of 4.2 additional deaths per facility, plus or minus 1.9.

Statewide, the findings suggest that the 6,237 COVID-positive admissions between late March and early May were “associated with several hundred, and possibly more than 1,000, additional resident deaths.”

The effect was more pronounced upstate, Empire Center’s Hammond said, which is possibly due to the virus being so prevalent in New York City compared to the rest of the state early in the pandemic.

The analysis focused on two key variables: newly admitted COVID-positive patients to nursing homes between March 25 and May 8, which totaled 6,327; and the residents in each facility who died between April 12 and June 4, which totaled 5,780. It excluded the 2,279 patients who were readmitted to nursing homes where they were already residents and controlled for the varying size of nursing homes as well as where a facility was located.

The CDC reports the median time from initial exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus to death from COVID-19 ranges for an individual Age 65 or older is 17 days. The Empire Center's analysis in correlating deaths with potential exposure events with COVID deaths 18 days later is consistent with that finding, though slightly conservative, so it will err in slightly undercounting the total deaths attributable to the Cuomo administration's deadly directive. We think the Empire Center's approach in estimating the additional COVID deaths resulting from the Cuomo administration's deadly directive is both reasonable and reliable.