21 June 2024: Hochul’s Pandemic Study Is a $4.3 Million Flop

Hochul’s Pandemic Study Is a $4.3 Million Flop

The report of a commission established by replacement NY governor Kathy Hochul to probe the effectiveness of policies implemented by former governor Andrew M. Cuomo and state officials who served under him is being slammed as a whitewash by the Empire Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy think tank in New York.

One of those policies is Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive, which forced nursing homes to admit patients known to have COVID infections into their facilities, where the highly contagious disease could spread like "fire through dry grass" among the portion of the state's population most vulnerable to a fatal outcome from exposure to it.

The Empire Center's Bill Hammond identifies multiple deficiencies in the report compiled by the Olson Group, which had been hired by Hochul to perform the audit. Here's an overview from the introduction of his analysis:

The newly released study of New York’s coronavirus pandemic response falls far short of what Governor Hochul promised – and the state urgently needs – in the aftermath of its worst natural disaster in modern history.

Hochul had commissioned a $4.3 million after-action review of the crisis, saying she wanted it to cover “the good, the bad and the ugly” and bolster the state’s preparedness for future outbreaks.

Yet the 262-page report from the Olson Group, a Virginia-based consulting firm, turns out to be thinly researched, poorly argued, ill-informed, sloppily presented and marred by obvious errors.

Although many of its findings ring true, it glosses over or ignores some of the state’s most questionable actions – such as ordering thousands of Covid-positive patients into nursing homes.

It looks especially weak in comparison to a similar review prepared for the state of New Jersey, which 648 pages longer – and far more detailed, authoritative and clearly written.

Hochul should declare the Olson Group’s work unacceptable, demand a refund and launch a real after-action review – by joining with Legislature to establish an independent pandemic response commission.

In this next excerpt, Hammond focuses on problems the Hochul Commission had in addressing Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive:

Another weak point is the report’s analysis of the much-debated March 25, 2020, order mandating nursing homes to admit Covid-positive patients being discharged from hospitals.

The report gives a garbled, incomplete account of the events surrounding the order and comes to a generally supportive conclusion:

The State is required by virtue of the applicable federal standards to have planning and processes in place to execute medical surge strategies to preserve the capacity to provide life-saving clinical care. It is also obligated to ensure that people are not discriminated against due to their health conditions. The policy to admit or return COVID-19 patients to nursing homes following hospital admission was an attempt to accomplish both standard public health disaster practices.

That analysis ignores key considerations:

• The policy was based on exaggerated projections of hospital crowding that never came to pass.
• Alternative sites were available, such as the temporary hospital at the Javits Convention Center, but they went largely unused.
• Nursing homes received no warning before the March 25 mandate was issued.
• Officials failed to emphasize the need for precautions in handling the admissions – or that facilities had the option of turning them down.
• The policy applied statewide even though the crisis was concentrated in New York City.
• The policy remained in place until early May even though hospital demand peaked in mid-April.

These are the type of details that a proper after-action review should itemize – not to shame past officials for mistakes, but to help future officials avoid repeating them.

It's quite possible Hochul's commission produced the report New York's state officials and she wanted them to produce. Unfortunately, it's not the report they really needed them to produce, which at $4.3 million, represents a costly flop that still needs to be cleaned up.

This entry was added to the timeline on 10 August 2024.