26 April 2021: Cuomo Blames His Administration's Cover-up of Nursing Home Deaths on Politics

Gov. Cuomo faces questions about allegations of sexual harassment, issues new denial

Most of the coverage of Governor Cuomo's rare in-person encounter with reporters on 26 April 2021 focused on the sexual harassment allegations that began taking center stage after the Cuomo administration acknowledged it covered-up the full extent of COVID nursing home deaths during the period its deadly 25 March 2020 directive was in effect. This report however covered the Governor's response to a question about that scandal:

Cuomo once again blamed a federal probe and the controversy surrounding his handling of nursing home deaths during the crisis on politics, claiming his fraught relationship with the Trump administration was the root of the issue.

“What that is going to come down to, in my opinion, is the politics of COVID,” he said.

Critics have accused the Cuomo administration of intentionally withholding the true number of nursing home deaths during the pandemic. A report from James’ office released in January resulted in the state Health department finally releasing a full tally.

“The number was always going to be what the number was, but making sure the number was accurate, is what was important. Nursing homes were ground zero for COVID. We all knew that that was true all across the country,” Cuomo said. “The finger-pointing, that is just more of the ugly politics of the time.”

The Cuomo administration's cover-up of the full extent of COVID deaths resulting from its deadly 25 March 2020 directive effectively began when he agreed to gift legal immunity for COVID deaths to a powerful hospital and nursing home lobby on 2 April 2020. We think they scored the deal by leveraging Cuomo over the 25 March 2020 directive, which bought their silence.

The Trump administration's DOJ first asked the Cuomo administration for data on those deaths on 26 August 2020, which it refused to provide. The Cuomo administration had begun regularly collecting detailed data on those deaths beginning on 18 April 2020 and required nursing homes to report earlier deaths to them. The Cuomo administration then stonewalled in providing that data to federal agencies, state lawmakers, watchdog groups, and the news media for months before finally being forced to release the public data after losing a 3 February 2021 court decision.