27 July 2021: Cuomo Claims He Has Never Lied About COVID-19 in New York

Cuomo claims he always tells ‘the truth’ on COVID-19 — except when he doesn’t

This report covers a number of comments Andrew M. Cuomo made at a coronavirus press briefing on Monday, 26 July 2021. Given the fact-checking involved, here are several extended excerpts from the report:

Gov. Cuomo tried to rewrite history Monday by portraying himself as having never fudged the facts about the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating, deadly impact on New York....

“I am telling you as I sit here, I have told you the facts on COVID from Day One,” he said.

“Whether they were easy, whether they were hard — I told you the truth.”

The following five excerpts challenge Goveror Cuomo's assertions, presenting Andrew M. Cuomo's comments from the press briefing followed by the reporters' fact checking. Here's the first, which is related to the Biden DOJ's decision to drop its investigation of excess COVID nursing home deaths in nursing homes operated by the state government, which covers just 5% of the total number of nursing homes and other assisted living facilities in New York.

Cuomo’s “truth”: “The Department of Justice dismissed it.”

On Monday, Cuomo said his administration was off the hook for its handling of nursing homes amid the pandemic due to Friday’s revelation that the Department of Justice had decided not to investigate potential violations of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act.

“It was an outrageous allegation,” Cuomo said.

“And it did a lot of harm and a lot of damage and then went on too long. I mean, this went on for like a year, until finally, the Department of Justice dismissed it.”

The reality:

Friday’s move only covered about 30 government-run nursing homes out of more than 600 senior care facilities across the state and doesn’t appear to have affected a potentially broader investigation into cases of COVID-19 among residents, employees and other staffers at New York’s privately run nursing homes.

That inquiry involves the possibility that “grossly substandard care” was provided to beneficiaries of the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Cuomo and his administration are also the focus of a criminal probe by the FBI and the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office into their cover-up of the total nursing home death toll from COVID-19 and the governor’s $5.1 million book deal for his pandemic memoir.

The next excerpt covers the COVID death totals reported by the Cuomo administration:

Cuomo’s “truth”: “Our number is actual death.”

Cuomo on Monday defended the state’s lower COVID-19 death toll when compared to the data compiled by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“CDC asks for actual deaths and presumed deaths of COVID,” Cuomo said.

“What does that mean, ‘presumed death?’ That means the nursing home operator or the hospital operator wasn’t really sure…Our number is actual death.”

The reality:

According to the CDC website, “A COVID-19 case is an individual who has been determined to have COVID-19 using a set of criteria known as a case definition. Cases can be classified as suspect, probable, or confirmed. CDC counts include probable and confirmed cases and deaths. Suspect cases and deaths are excluded.”

As of Monday the state Department of Health only acknowledged 43,059 deaths, while the CDC listed 54,946.

The third excerpt covers a the 6 July 2020 report issued by the New York Department of Health that exonerated itself and the Cuomo administration for contributing to the COVID death toll at New York's nursing homes resulting from the administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive:

Cuomo's "truth": "That has no basis in fact."

On July 6, 2020, Cuomo claimed a study by the state Health Department that blamed infected but asymptomatic workers for the spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes had disporved critics who faulted the state mandate for the facilities to accept COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals.

"That has no basis in fact," he said of the criticism.

"It was pure politics. it was ugly politics. Now the report has the facts, and the facts tell the exact opposite story."

The reality:

A subsequent study released in February by the nonprofit Empire Center for Public Policy, reported exclusively by The Post, tied “several hundred and possibly more than 1,000” fatalities to the since-rescinded March 25, 2020, order.

The analysis also suggested the controversial mandate was “associated with” more than one in six of 5,780 nursing deaths statewide between late March and early May, when Cuomo rescinded it.

Cuomo made no mention of his senior aides doctoring the figures presented by the New York Department of Health in its infamous 6 July 2020 report.

The final excerpt covers Cuomo's claim his administration hid any information from the public or government officials.

Cuomo's "truth": "That has no basis in fact."

On Feb. 15, days after The Post exclusively revealed that top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa privately told Democratic lawmakers that his administration stonewalled their requests for complete data on nursing home deaths from COVID-19, Cuomo denied that any numbers had ever been withheld.

“To be clear, all the deaths in the nursing homes and in the hospitals were always fully, publicly and accurately reported,” he said.

“Total death counts were always accurate. Nothing was hidden from anyone.”

The reality:

Weeks earlier, state Attorney General Letitia James released a report that suggested the nursing home death toll may have been more than 50 percent higher than publicly acknowledged because Cuomo’s administration wasn’t including the number of residents who died in hospitals.

The bombshell finding led Health Commissioner Howard Zucker to update the number of nursing home deaths to 12,743, up from 8,711 a day earlier.

It appears Cuomo is determined to present information that has already been determined to be either false or misleading as his version of the truth.