23 November 2021: Cuomo Cover-up of COVID Nursing Home Deaths Originated in March 2020

Cuomo team talked lowballing COVID-19 nursing home deaths

This report focus on the findings in the New York Assembly's impeachment report related to Andrew M. Cuomo's cover-up of the full extent of COVID deaths at New York's nursing homes, confirming the cover-up began much earlier than has generally been accepted in media reports.

After disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo spent more than a year blaming everyone but himself for the nursing home controversy – including The Post — the state Assembly’s damning impeachment probe revealed both Cuomo and his top aides hid nursing home data from the public while negotiating his $5.1 million book deal.

According to a report released Monday, Cuomo was aware as early as March 2020 that nursing home deaths were being undercounted, and a special Department of Health team was assigned to reevaluate the figures following discussions with DOH and COVID-19 Task Force officials.

In addition, the report shows Cuomo was directly involved in editing and reviewing the DOH’s supposedly exculpatory July 2020 report on the COVID-19 count in nursing homes in order to “strengthen” his defense of the notorious March 25 directive that required nursing homes to readmit residents who tested positive for the coronavirus.

Our analysis had put the beginning of the Cuomo administration's cover-up in early April 2020, but it is clear its roots extend all the way back into March 2020. We think Cuomo chose to exploit the state's early problem in undercounting COVID deaths among nursing home residents after establishing its deadly 25 March 2020 directive, which is what changes the issue from one of incompetence to one of corruption.

The NY Assembly impeachment report confirms Cuomo's top staffers knew about the undercount:

In April and May 2020, after the Health Department had been publishing fatality data for “several weeks,” investigators found that Cuomo’s Executive Chamber staffers were aware that “certain fatalities in nursing home facilities due to COVID-19 were not included in the published data.”

The lowballing was the topic of “multiple discussions” among Cuomo’s top staffers and members of the governor’s COVID-19 Task Force. Those high-level government employees exhibited a “reluctance to admit error” when their number-fudging was discovered, lawmakers say.

The Assembly report shows the governor’s aides and task force members deliberately opted to publicize the smaller figure of 6,000 deaths — which included only fatalities in care facilities — instead of the larger number of 10,000, which represented all COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents.

Witnesses told investigators that the same Executive Chamber official who was the “key point person” for Cuomo’s book deal also made the call that only in-facility deaths would be included in the health department report.

Sources identified that “key point person” as Melissa DeRosa, a former top Cuomo aide who the report found “sent and received at least 1,000 emails” about the book between July and December 2020.

The report notes DeRosa had claimed the Cuomo administration "froze" becase it was afraid of criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, but that investigation began months after its cover-up had begun. The Cuomo administration's choice to engage in a cover-up is unrelated to any federal investigation.

We think it's just a matter of time before criminal charges are filed related to Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths cover-up.