12 August 2021: Cuomo Exit Isn’t Stopping Push for Answers on Nursing Homes

Cuomo exit isn’t stopping push for answers on nursing homes

The Associated Press has been one of the better sources for news related to Andrew M. Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. In this report, the AP checks in with families of the victims of the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive following his announced resignation.

Sexual harassment allegations cost New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo his job. Now, many want to see him answer for a scandal that cut to the heart of his reputation as a pandemic hero and may have had life-and-death consequences — his administration’s handling of outbreaks in nursing homes.

Months before a blistering investigation found Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women, the same attorney general concluded that the administration understated the true death toll in nursing homes by thousands and that fatalities may have been fueled by a state order that effectively forced such homes to accept recovering COVID-19 patients.

Whatever action may lie ahead on the harassment claims, families of the more than 15,000 New Yorkers who died in nursing homes say they want accountability, too, and are urging state lawmakers and the U.S. Justice Department to keep investigating Cuomo after he leaves office.

“The nursing home people and their families have not had a day of reckoning,” said Vivian Zayas, who blames Cuomo for her mother’s death in a West Islip, New York, nursing home.

“This not a victory yet,” she said. “A victory is when the whole nursing home scandal is blown open.”

Since this is New York, which has a long history of ignoring corruption scandals, some victims fear Cuomo will escape facing any consequences for the nursing home deaths.

Grace Colucci, whose father died of COVID-19 at a hospital after being released from a nursing home, found her immediate happiness about Cuomo’s resignation dissolve into tears. She said she is fearful he will evade any real punishment for what she believes he did that cost the sick and old their lives.

“I’m afraid that they won’t find out why it happened,” Colucci said. “This may all be brushed under the rug.”

With so many federal and state probes underway, it seems unlikely that none of the investigations will produce prosecutable results. But this is still Andrew M. Cuomo's New York and President Biden's DOJ has already dropped the ball for investigation excess COVID deaths in state-run nursing homes. Too few politicians have done anything to inspire confidence among the families of Cuomo's true victims that they won't sweep it under the rug when it suits them.