13 February 2021: Coverup Scandal Consumes Team Cuomo; President Biden Seems Okay With NY Nursing Home Deaths

Coverup claims engulf Cuomo as scandal over nursing home deaths grows

This article presents a good overview of the reactions to Governor Cuomo's coverup:

The administration's handling of nursing homes is now a full-blown scandal — a stunning reversal for Cuomo, whose early handling of the pandemic and high-profile daily press briefings earned him soaring approval ratings, an Emmy and a book deal.

Now, many fellow Democrats want to write an epilogue.

As Cuomo headed to Washington Friday to meet with President Joe Biden on pandemic response, at least 14 Democrats from the left flank of the state Legislature called for a repeal of the governor's emergency powers — enacted nearly 11 months ago — that have given him nearly unilateral authority during the pandemic. And momentum appears to be growing in the Legislature to exert more oversight.

"It is clear that the expanded emergency powers granted to the Governor are no longer appropriate," lawmakers said in a statement issued Friday morning.

Cuomo was already facing mounting backlash for his handling of the nursing home crisis. The Wednesday call with DeRosa was designed to repair relationships with frustrated Democrats who said Cuomo was shutting them out of the state's response.

It didn't quite go as planned. The article also indicates that President Biden's administration is so-far tolerant of Governor Cuomo's scandal, although it is holding short of endorsing Governor Cuomo.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked during a Friday briefing if Biden, who has touted the importance of transparency for the nation's recovery, felt confident in Cuomo's administration in light of the recent report.

"The president hosted Gov. Cuomo and a bipartisan group of governors and mayors to the White House today to get their perspective from the front lines, not to give anyone a stamp of approval or to seek their stamp of approval," she said.

If President Biden were genuinely interested in promoting unity, initiating federal investigations into the Cuomo administration's policies and practices involving nursing homes in the state would be a good place to start.

12 February 2021: Cuomo Administration Coverup of COVID Nursing Home Deaths Confirmed as Scandal Blows Up

Melissa DeRosa's admission on nursing home coverup sparks calls for probe — and Cuomo's prosecution

The reaction to the acknowledgment that Governor Cuomo and his administration engaged in a coverup of the full extent of COVID-19 deaths among New York's nursing home residents is starting to come in. This report focuses on the calls for new investigations and potential prosecution:

The stunning admission by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's top aide that the administration withheld the state's nursing home death toll out of fear that the damning numbers would "be used against us" by the feds has sparked bipartisan calls for a thorough probe — and prosecution of the governor.

"Governor Cuomo, the Secretary to the Governor, and his senior team must be prosecuted immediately – both by the Attorney General of New York State and the U.S. Department of Justice," US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) wrote in a statement.

"This bombshell admission of a coverup and the remarks by the Secretary to the Governor indicating intent to obstruct any federal investigation is a stunning and criminal abuse of power," Stefanik continued.

The article continues to report on the reaction of Governor Cuomo's political opponents in the state, which are less restrained than Representative Stefanik's statement. Here's a roundup of additional reactions:

• Disturbing, criminal, corrupt: NY leaders rip Cuomo nursing home disclosures - This article details the highly critical reaction of members of Governor Cuomo's party to the confirmation that his administration engaged in a coverup of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents.
• Cuomo faces calls to resign amid allegations of hiding nursing home Covid deaths - This article describes the bipartisan outrage over Governor Cuomo's coverup, in which some have begun calling for his "resignation, impeachment, or removal from office".
• Gov. Cuomo ducks reporters after Biden WH meeting amid nursing home scandal - This article reveals Governor Cuomo's initial response to the exposure of his coverup scandal suggests he's hoping to wait out hard questions from the media.
• Report Of Possible Cover Up On New York Nursing Home Deaths Spurs Calls For Probes Of Cuomo, Aides - This report reveals the calls for investigations into the coverup will extend to other officials in the Cuomo administration.
• Some New York Democrats Break With Cuomo as 14 State Senators Call to Strip Him of Emergency Powers - This article reveals that members of Governor Cuomo's political party will seek to remove the emergency powers he was granted during the coronavirus pandemic as part of the response to the nursing home death coverup scandal.
• Sec. to Governor Cuomo releases statement, transcription of call following nursing home deaths report - This report details Melissa DeRosa's attempt to perform damage control following her bombshell admission.

Cuomo lied and covered it up — we need a federal investigation to find the truth

The New York Post has owned the story of Governor Cuomo's disastrous nursing home directive and now his coverup of its extent from almost the beginning. In this editorial, they note several problems that only a federal investigation can address at this point:

A federal investigation may be the only way to get the full truth of Team Cuomo's order to nursing homes, populated by those most vulnerable to the virus, to take in COVID-positive patients. Not just the "what" of how many lives it cost, but the "why" behind this madness, and the months and months of coverup.

Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor, made the stunning statement on a video call with Democratic state lawmakers as she "explained" why the administration ignored since August their demands for nursing-home death data. It began when then-President Donald Trump "directs the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us," she said. "And basically we froze."

"Because then we were in a position where we weren't sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren't sure if there was going to be an investigation," she said.

Suppressing evidence for fear of federal prosecution — what did the administration have to hide?

Another problem: The state started hiding the info months earlier, long before Trump tweeted a thing.

Later in the call, she said the Biden Justice Department isn't as interested in Team Cuomo's malfeasance. "All signs point to they are not looking at this, they've dropped it," she said.

The Post's editors point to that last statement and the close association between Governor Cuomo and President Biden in calling for a special counsel to conduct a federal investigation. Even now, the Cuomo administration still fails to provide sufficient transparency into the COVID-19 deaths of nursing home residents. Without that information, it is not possible to assess his administration's claims regarding the impact of his 25 March 2020 directive that forced nursing homes to blindly admit coronavirus-infected patients without testing to determine if they were still contagious.

11 February 2021: Team Cuomo Claims They Hid Data to Avoid Trump DOJ

Cuomo aide admits they hid nursing home data so feds wouldn't find out

As bombshells go, this is a big one:

The stunning admission of a cover-up was made by Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa during a video conference call with state Democratic leaders on 10 February 2021 in which she said the Cuomo administration had rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August because "right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] turns this into a giant political football," according to an audio recording of the two-hour-plus meeting.

"He starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes," DeRosa said. "He starts going after [New Jersey Gov. Phil] Murphy, starts going after [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom, starts going after [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer."

In addition to attacking Cuomo's fellow Democratic governors, DeRosa said, Trump "directs the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us."

"And basically, we froze," she told the lawmakers on the call.

"Because then we were in a position where we weren't sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren't sure if there was going to be an investigation."

If true, this admission is nothing less than the confirmation Governor Cuomo and members of his administration engaged in a coverup to avoid facing the legal liability associated with their policies. Then again, this rationale rings false because it seems really stupid and paranoid, but who can tell with these people?

11 February 2021: Over 9,000 Patients with COVID Dumped from Hospitals into NY Nursing Homes

AP: Over 9,000 virus patients sent into NY nursing homes

This report gets into the extent of the state's undercount of the number of COVID-19 patients who were sent back to nursing homes after being treated for the infections at hospitals:

More than 9,000 recovering coronavirus patients in New York state were released from hospitals into nursing homes early in the pandemic under a controversial directive that was scrapped amid criticism it accelerated outbreaks, according to new records obtained by The Associated Press.

The new number of 9,056 recovering patients sent to hundreds of nursing homes is more than 40% higher than what the state health department previously released. And it raises new questions as to whether a March 25 directive from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration helped spread sickness and death among residents, a charge the state disputes.

"The lack of transparency and the meting out of bits of important data has undermined our ability to both recognize the scope and severity of what's going on" and address it, said Richard Mollot, the executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, a residents advocacy group.

But wait, it gets worse:

In its reply to an AP Freedom of Information request from May, the state health department this week released two figures: a previously disclosed count of 6,327 admissions of patients directly from hospitals and a new count of 2,729 "readmissions" of patients sent back from a hospital to the nursing home where they had lived before.

Having undercounted the extent of Governor Cuomo's forced admission directive by such a large number, the findings of the New York Department of Health's 6 July 2020 report exonerating itself and the Cuomo administration of responsibility for excess nursing home resident COVID-19 deaths looks even more bogus.

11 February 2021: NY DOH Sneakily Established COVID-Only Nursing Homes Months After Most Needed

N.Y. quietly established 'COVID-only' nursing homes to care for recovering seniors: health commissioner

Another day, another damning admission forced out of the Cuomo administration:

In a letter to lawmakers, New York's top health official revealed that the state has quietly established 19 "COVID-only" nursing homes to care for seniors recovering from the deadly virus.

Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said the state set up the facilities in November "to allow the transfer of MEDICALLY STABLE, BUT persistently positive COVID-19 nursing home eligible patients" out of hospitals.

Zucker wrote to lawmakers Wednesday, answering questions posed over six months ago, and said the sites contain a total of 1,941 beds "to meet the needs of this special population."

He did not specify where the facilities are located.

The letter, released by Senate Democrats after a closed-door meeting with Cuomo officials, also revealed that more than 15,000 long-term care residents have died of COVID-19 in the state, a dramatic number that includes seniors who died after being transferred to hospitals.

Note the month New York's DOH established these facilities: November 2020. What does it say about the quality of the Cuomo administration's leadership and management skills when they waited so long to both consider and implement an obvious policy that would minimize the risk of exposure among the state's most vulnerable population to coronavirus infections. This action is the political equivalent of closing the barn after all the horses have escaped.

10 February 2021: What's New and Missing in the NY DOH's Nursing Home Death Data?

The Latest On NY's Nursing Home COVID Deaths From The Think Tank Suing For The Records

The Empire Center's Bill Hammond has played a major role in forcing the Cuomo administration to release public data on COVID-19 nursing home resident deaths. In this article, he emphasizes the importance of the data that New York's Department of Health has not yet made public.

9 February 2021: NY Dems Start Turning on Governor Cuomo

New York Democrats holding Cuomo accountable over nursing home deaths

In a sign of how badly Governor Cuomo has managed the coronavirus epidemic among the state's nursing home residents, and also how badly his efforts to stonewall investigations of his scandal now appear, members of his political party are launching accountability measures in the New York legislature.

8 February 2021: NY COVID Death Data for LTC Facilities Comes Out; Cuomo "We're No. 46" Claim Is Now Entirely False

New York Reveals Another 1,516 COVID-19 Deaths in Long-Term Care Facilities

The Empire Center's lawsuit against the New York Department of Health was instrumental in forcing that agency to finally begin acknowledging the full toll of COVID-19 among nursing home residents. In this article, the Empire Center reports New York's Department of Health was also undercounting COVID-19 deaths at New York's assisted care facilities, increasing that total by 1,516 from what the state had first reported on 6 February 2021. New York state's official COVID-19 death toll among elderly, sick New Yorkers residing at nursing homes or assisted care facilities is now at least 14,932, which means over 2 out of every 5 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in New York occurred among the residents of these facilities.

What to make of New York's revised nursing-home coronavirus numbers

The Washington Post provides a service that helps visualize part of the reason why the Cuomo administration has sought to hide the full extent of COVID-19 deaths among New York's nursing home residents. The following chart from the newspaper's analysis shows how New York's relative position jumped from near the bottom to above average as it was forced to use a more similar system of accounting as all other states have used throughout the pandemic:

The chart does not reflect the additional 1,516 COVID-19 deaths of assisted care facility residents that New York's Department of Health acknowledged after 6 February 2021.

Before Judge O'Connell's ruling forced him to come clean, Governor Cuomo was claiming that New York outperformed most other states in the measure of COVID-19 nursing home deaths. After properly accounting for the at-risk population however, the Washington Post's analysis puts paid to that particular claim from the Governor's 29 January 2021 press conference.

7 February 2021: Cuomo Administration Still Hiding COVID Nursing Home Death Data

Even a lawsuit doesn't get Team Cuomo to come clean on nursing-home deaths

This editorial affirms the shortfalls in the Cuomo administration's latest reporting of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents.

6 February 2021: Stonewalling Common Practice by Team Cuomo; NY Nursing Home Death Data Starts Coming Out But Incomplete

Cuomo administration's stonewalling goes far beyond nursing home deaths

This article describes how stonewalling, the unethical delay in reporting or supression of information, is a common practice of Governor Cuomo and his administration.

Cuomo releases data on COVID-19 deaths among nursing residents who died outside facilities

Governor Cuomo and his administration are following the "hide the bad news" playbook with a classic weekend news dump, which is aimed at getting bad news out when the fewest people are paying attention. It is no accident the state's information on COVID-19 deaths among infected New York nursing home residents, regardless of where the deaths occurred, is being released on the Saturday before the SuperBowl, rather than on the Monday after, which was the deadline set by Judge O'Connor.

That said, this article reports the total confirmed and presumed coronavirus-related deaths among residents of New York's nursing homes is 13,163, with 4,067 deaths taking place outside the facilities where they resided. Through 5 February 2021, the COVID Tracking Project reports New York has seen 35,920 COVID-19 deaths, where deaths of nursing home residents would make up 36.6% of this total.

The report also tallies death data for the residents of Assisted Care Facilities (ACF) in New York, finding the total confirmed and presumed COVID-19 deaths at these residences would add another 219 deaths to the state's total.

Nursing Home and ACF COVID Related Deaths Statewide, Data through February 04, 2021

This is the first New York State Department of Health's detailed report to indicate the number of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 both inside and outside their nursing home. The data is broken down by county and by nursing home facility.

However, this report does not indicate the dates of these deaths, which is critical for assessing the impact of the Cuomo administration's 25 March 2020 directive. The conduct of Governor Cuomo and his administration suggests many of these deaths are likely concentrated in the period in which the directive was in effect.

5 February 2021: NY Leads Nation in COVID Nursing Home Deaths; A Successful Lawsuit

NY tops California in COVID nursing home deaths after Cuomo scandal

California has nearly double the population of New York, which gives a point of comparison of how much deadlier COVID-19 has been among New York's nursing home residents.

How the Empire Center is Dragging Nursing Home Data into the Sunlight

This local newspaper article provides background on the Empire Center's successful lawsuit against the Cuomo administration.

4 February 2021: Editorial - NY Health Department Should Immediately Comply with Ruling

The Editorial Board: Health Department should immediately comply with ruling on nursing home deaths

The editors of the Buffalo News join the calls from media outlets in New York for the Cuomo administration to release its public data on COVID-19 deaths of New York's nursing home residents.

3 February 2021: Judge Rules Against Team Cuomo Nursing Home Death Data Stonewall

Cuomo Dealt Another Blow on N.Y. Nursing-Home Death Controversy

After months of inaction, New York Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O'Donnell finally ruled in favor of the Empire Center for Public Policy's claim against the state of New York, finding the Cuomo administration broke the law by withholding the state's public data on the coronavirus-related deaths of nursing home residents.

Cuomo Health Dept. illegally withheld COVID nursing home death toll: judge

This article better describes the judge's ruling:

In a 16-page decision, acting Albany Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O'Connor blasted the DOH for repeatedly telling the Empire Center for Public Policy "that it was unable to respond to the [Freedom of Information Law] request" since it was filed six months ago.

"DOH does not, in the Court's opinion, offer an adequate explanation as to why it has not responded to that request within its estimated time period or to date," O'Connor wrote.

"Its continued failure to provide petitioner a response, given the straightforward nature of the request … goes against FOIL's broad standard of open and transparent government and is a violation of that statute."

O'Connor ordered the DOH to turn over the records within five business days.

The numbers may be higher than the Cuomo administration has admitted, even after the recent 'adjustment' following the state attorney general's report.

2 February 2021: Dem NY Lawmakers Call NY DOH Commissioner Zucker a Liar

Democrats blast Cuomo's health chief Howard Zucker as 'liar,' 'puppet'

This article focuses on information that was leaked from a conference call between the Cuomo administration's top public health official and members of Governor Cuomo's political party in New York's legislature:

Embattled state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker was blasted by Democratic lawmakers in a virtual meeting amid continuing controversy over the state's nursing home death toll from COVID-19, The Post has learned.

Several members of the state Assembly called Zucker a "liar" during the video conference call — and he was even referred to as Gov. Andrew Cuomo's "puppet," sources said Tuesday.

"A lot of members are up in arms about this whole nursing home thing," said one lawmaker who took part in the Monday afternoon meeting.

"We've been asking for this information for months — 6, 7, 8 months … The attorney general drops a report and then four hours later you receive the information from the Health Department."

The Assembly member added: "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out — they were lying — after the attorney general released their report."

It remains to be seen if the leaked information from the conference call is for show or if the Democratic lawmakers really care.

1 February 2021: NY Public Health Officials Resignations Stacking Up; NY Senate Dems Block Subpoena; No Recall Option for NY Governor

9 Top N.Y. Health Officials Have Quit as Cuomo Scorns Expertise

The New York Times has begun reporting on Governor Cuomo's micromanagement of the state's Department of Health during the coronavirus pandemic after noticing lots of high-ranking people have been resigning during the last eight months. Here's the money quote:

In Albany, tensions worsened in recent months as state health officials said they often found out about major changes in pandemic policy only after Mr. Cuomo announced them at news conferences — and then asked them to match their health guidance to the announcements.

That was what happened with the vaccine plan, when state health officials were blindsided by the news that the rollout would be coordinated locally by hospitals.

But it also occurred earlier with revisions in a host of state rules from the fate of indoor dining and businesses like gyms to capacity limits on social gatherings, according to a person with direct experience inside the department.

Left unsaid, and so far unasked: "Was Governor Cuomo similarly dictating the state's policies for nursing home residents?" After all, what the article describes is not some new management practice that Governor Cuomo suddenly adopted in July 2020.

NY Senate Democrats block subpoena for COVID-19 nursing home death data

This article describes the actions of Governor Cuomo's political allies in the upper body of New York's state legislature to circle the wagons to prevent further disclosures of the full extent of the Governor's nursing home COVID-19 death coverup.

New Yorkers Furious At Cuomo Over Nursing Homes Report, But There's No Path to Recall Governor

This article describes the frustration that some New Yorkers have in not being able to force Governor Cuomo out of office in a recall election because of his COVID-19 nursing home death scandals.

29 January 2021: Governor Cuomo Claims Administration Did "Best They Could"

Cuomo Says Staff Handled Nursing Homes as 'Best They Could'

This article describes the Cuomo administration's Nixonian 'mistakes were made'-style public relations approach to the revelation of the full extent of how bad COVID-19 was in the state's nursing homes. This particular article demonstrates significant pro-Cuomo bias on the part of the journalists and their publication however, as it completely omits the most significant statement Governor Cuomo made about his confirmed scandal at the news conference. [To be fair, there are worse and more corruptly-biased media outlets.]

Cuomo callously addresses COVID nursing home report: 'Who cares!'

This article focuses straight on the most significant statement Governor Cuomo made about his administration's attempted coverup of the extent of COVID-19 deaths among New York nursing home residents:

"Who cares [if they] died in the hospital, died in a nursing home? They died."

That's how Gov. Cuomo callously responded Friday to the damning state attorney general's report that revealed his administration downplayed the total number of nursing home residents killed by COVID-19.

During his first remarks on the spiraling controversy, Cuomo said, "If you look at New York state, we have a lower percentage of deaths in nursing homes than other states."

"A third of all deaths in this nation are from nursing homes," he said.

"New York state, we're only about 28 percent — only — but we're below the national average in number of deaths in nursing homes."

"But who cares — 33 [percent], 29 [percent] — died in the hospital, died in a nursing home? They died."

Even the very left-leaning Washington Post was taken aback by Governor Cuomo's apparent callousness. At this point, it seems unlikely Governor Cuomo or members of his administration will escape political consequences from their policies.

New York Daily News Calls Out Andrew Cuomo's 'Obstinacy' for Undercounted Nursing Home Deaths

This article is strange in that its about another publication's editorial, which takes Governor Cuomo's attempts to mischaracterize the extent of COVID-19 among New York's nursing home residents during the period his controversial policies that could only contribute to the spread of coronavirus infections among the state's most at-risk population to task.

Curing Cuomo's obstinacy: Under pressure, state officials finally release a nursing-home death tally; big questions remain

This is the Daily News' editorial. In 2018, the editors endorsed Andrew Cuomo in his campaign for a third term as New York's governor.

28 January 2021: NY AG Confirms Team Cuomo Hiding Extent of COVID Deaths in Nursing Homes

Cuomo administration severely undercounted COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes: report

This article covers the first of several blockbuster stories that broke in the state of New York on 28 January 2021, which began as the state's attorney general, a Cuomo ally, was compelled to report the findings of the state Department of Justice's investigation. Here's the short summary:

A 76-page report released Thursday by New York Attorney General Letitia James found a larger number of nursing home residents died from COVID-19 than state data show.

The report indicated that under the Cuomo administration's unusual scheme for counting the COVID-19 deaths of nursing home residents in the state was undercounted by 50%. Which is to say the Cuomo administration had officially acknowledged half the total.

NY nursing home COVID deaths more than 12K, Cuomo Health chief reveals

This article reviews the fallout from the New York Attorney General's report, which forced New York Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker to finally release the public data on COVID-19 related nursing home resident deaths several hours later, after months of stonewalling. Here's an excerpt:

A damning attorney general's report that showed Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other officials downplayed the deadly impact of COVID-19 on New York's nursing homes finally led the state's embattled health commissioner on Thursday to reveal the total number of resident fatalities.

In a defensive, nearly 1,700-word statement, Dr. Howard Zucker released figures that put the tally of confirmed and presumed deaths in both nursing homes and hospitals at 12,743 as of Jan. 19.

The staggering number is only slightly less than the 13,000-plus suggested by the report issued earlier in the day by Attorney General Letitia James.

The figure of 12,743 COVID-19 nursing home deaths in New York is generally consistent with the percentage of nursing home deaths reported in other northeastern states. The Cuomo administration had been falsely attributing the additional deaths to the hospitals to which nursing home residents infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus were transferred prior to their deaths.

Here are links to other news outlets covering the story:

• New York AG probe prompts Cuomo team to release nursing home COVID death data
• NY data show nursing home deaths undercounted by thousands

Nursing home fallout for Cuomo: Angry, brutal, bipartisan

Despite the Cuomo administration's contrary claims, the push to force Governor Cuomo to acknowledge the full extent of COVID-19 deaths among New York's nursing home residents has been bipartisan. This article covers some of the immediate reaction to the breaking news confirmation of the Cuomo administration's attempted coverup.

New York State Office of the Attorney General Letitia James: Nursing Home Response to COVID-19 Pandemic, January 2021

One last bombshell was contained with New York state Attorney General Letitia James' report. It would appear the Cuomo administration issued guidance for nursing homes to stop testing incoming patients for coronavirus infections on 21 March 2020:

OAG preliminary investigations reflected that in the nine downstate counties that experienced higher community-based transmission of COVID-19, some facilities stopped testing residents for COVID-19 after the March 21 guidance was issued. For example, the administrator of a for-profit facility in New York City with CMS 1-Star Staffing and 1-Star Overall ratings alleged in April that the facility was not currently testing residents for COVID-19. He alleged that DOH told the facility to stop testing at some point in March.

The 21 March 2020 guidance came just four days before the administration issued its disastrous 25 March 2020 directive forcing state nursing homes to admit patients who had been treated for coronavirus infections at hospitals. Consequently, nursing homes were not allowed to determine if these newly admitted patients were still contagious. The combination of Cuomo administration policies would almost appear designed to ensure the deadly spread of COVID-19 in New York's nursing homes.

28 January 2021: Real COVID Nursing Home Death Toll Much Higher than Cuomo Administration Admits

The real Covid death toll at nursing homes, and the staggering heartache in NY (exclusive)

This entry was retroactively inserted into the timeline on 26 December 2021. This report by Advance Media NY's Tim Knauss broke the news that New York's COVID death toll among nursing home residents was substantially greater than Andrew M. Cuomo's administration was officially acknowledging. The report was quickly overtaken in the news cycle later in the day when the New York State Attorney General's office released its report confirming the magnitude of the Cuomo administration's cover-up.

Because the original article is contained behind a subscriber paywall, the excerpt below is taken from the editors' year-end summary of where their organization's reporting made a difference during 2021.

Dogged reporting by Tim Knauss led to the bombshell headline in January that deaths from Covid-19 in Onondaga County nursing homes were 50% higher than New York state had reported. Within hours, state Attorney General Letitia James dropped her bombshell report about the true number of nursing home deaths, confirming our reporting and undercutting Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s heroic Covid narrative. It was the beginning of the end of Cuomo’s 10-year reign; he resigned in August under the weight of sexual harassment allegations and the threat of impeachment over the nursing home cover-up.

The timeline seeks to acknowledge good reporting, especially when it breaks news, wherever we find it. When combined with the attorney general's findings, this report contributed to opening the floodgates of scandals that ultimately led to Andrew M. Cuomo's resignation in disgrace in August 2021.

25 January 2021: NY Lawmakers Getting Tired of Being Jerked Around by Team Cuomo

Albany pol threatens to subpoena Cuomo over nursing home deaths

New York's legislators are getting tired of Governor Cuomo's continued stonewalling in releasing the state's public data on the numbers of COVID-19 deaths of nursing home residents. So much so that top leaders in the state assembly are promising to increase the heat on the Cuomo administration's public health officials:

The top Democrat on the state Senate Investigations Committee threatened to subpoena the state Health Department to release the total number of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19, because he's tired of their months-long stonewalling.

"It is downright insulting to the co-equal State Legislature that, six months later, DOH is continuing to stonewall us on basic questions," seethed a furious state Sen. Jame Skoufis (D-Newburgh) during an unrelated press conference in Albany Monday.

Skoufis, along with a chorus of bipartisan lawmakers, medical experts and family members, have been demanding that Gov. Cuomo's top health official — DOH Commissioner Howard Zucker — release the accurate number of nursing home residents who died of the deadly disease after getting so sick they had to be transferred to a hospital.

"If the Commissioner fails to provide the long-overdue answers by the time he provides testimony at next week's hearing, I am supportive of taking the next step and compelling the information, but the decision is not a unilateral one and requires support from the conference and leadership," Skoufis declared, noting if the missing numbers are not delivered, he will grill Zucker at next week's health-focused joint budget hearing hosted by the state Senate and Assembly, scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 3.

He warned: "The hearing will be an unpleasant and uncomfortable one for Commissioner Zucker if he continues to withhold answers to the Legislature's questions."

20 January 2021: NY Lawmakers Ask President Biden for Help in Getting COVID Nursing Home Death Data

NY lawmakers appeal to Biden for COVID-19 death data in nursing homes

This article describes the latest bipartisan effort to force Governor Cuomo to release New York's public data on current or former nursing home residents who died of COVID-19, regardless of where they died in the state, by appealing to the federal government.

13 January 2021: Team Cuomo Still Hiding Public Data for COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Cuomo still refuses to disclose total number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths: watchdog

This article describes the latest evolution in the Cuomo administration's stonewalling:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration is again refusing to release the total number of nursing home residents who've died from the coronavirus for at least another two months — until March 22 at the earliest, a watchdog group charged.

In a letter to the Empire Center for Public Policy on Wednesday, the state Health Department claimed that it needs another nine weeks and five days to comply with the legal request for a full accounting of nursing home deaths "because the records potentially responsive to your request are currently being reviewed for applicable exemptions, legal privileges and responsiveness."

The Empire Center submitted its FOIL request on Aug. 3 seeking the total number of COVID-19 nursing home fatalities — those who died in nursing homes and those who were ill and died after being transported to hospitals.

The state health department's review for "available exemptions, legal privileges and responsiveness" means that when the data is finally made public, it will not reflect the total number of COVID-19 deaths experienced by New York's nursing home residents during 2020. But is releasing the numbers the state has in its records really that difficult?

The answer to that question is "No. It's not difficult at all."

A nursing home industry insider also said he was baffled by the delay.

"The DOH has minute-by-minute data of nursing home deaths. The state's delayed response defeats the purpose of the Freedom of Information Law," the source said.

In fact, DOH has fined nursing homes for being tardy in submitting daily reports that include data on coronavirus cases, leaving it open to charges of failing to practice what it preaches.

That would appear to be the Cuomo administration's legal modus operandi.

Cuomo Delays Releasing Nursing Home Data for Two More Months

This press release from the Empire Center's normally easy-going Bill Hammond describes exactly what is wrong with the Cuomo administration's continuing failure to release all the data the state of New York has collected on COVID-19 related deaths of nursing home residents:

It could not be more clear that the state is illegally hiding basic information about a public health crisis. The department's excuses are an insult to the intelligence of every New Yorker, and the Cuomo administration's stonewalling makes a mockery of the public's right to know. It's increasingly evident that the state will not release these records until compelled to do so by the courts."

The Empire Center is currently awaiting a ruling from state Supreme Court Judge Kimberly O'Connor, and has been since 30 October 2020.

12 January 2021: Cuomo Administration Hiding NY DOH Report Data

Cuomo administration conceals records behind controversial nursing home study

This article from the Times-Union reports on the status of their Freedom Of Information Law (FOIL) request to obtain the New York state government's public data on the COVID-19 deaths of nursing home residents.

After months of furor from mourning families, the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued a report in July absolving itself of blame for thousands of COVID-19-related deaths at nursing homes in New York.

Although Cuomo portrayed the findings as definitive proof, six months later, his administration is refusing to back up the findings by providing copies of the records that were the basis of the report's conclusions. In response to a written request from the Times Union, the administration last week cited exemptions in the state Freedom of Information Law which the Department of Health contends allows the agency to keep the records secret....

On the day the report was issued, the Times Union filed a Freedom of Information Law request for copies of the surveys filled out by nursing homes. But the Cuomo administration refused to provide copies of completed surveys — and also would not turn over blank copies showing the survey questions. A Department of Health spokesman, Gary Holmes, refused to say why the department was refusing to provide blank copies.

The Times-Union explains why the Cuomo administration's failure to back up the findings of its DOH report by releasing the data on which it claims to have based it upon is problematic:

A major assertion in the report is that the peak day of nursing home resident deaths came six days before the peak day for admission of COVID-19 patients from hospitals to nursing homes.

That timing demonstrates that the state's controversial admissions' policy "could not have been the driver of nursing home infections or fatalities," the report concluded. The findings assert that if re-admissions of sick or recovering patients to nursing homes had been the driver, the peak deaths would have occurred after before the memo's issuance, not before.

But there's also no publicly available data providing independent verification that the "peak" of admissions occurred on April 14. Similarly, the report's assertion that deaths peaked in nursing homes on April 8 cannot be verified.

It's a fair bet that the data does not support the Cuomo administration's findings absolving itself of responibility for nursing home deaths related to its 25 March 2020 directive forcing nursing homes to blindly admit patients who had been treated for coronavirus at New York's hospitals. This hypothesis would explain the Cuomo administration's efforts to continue delaying the release of the data and also their ongoing efforts to 'scrub' the data they will ultimately release to minimize contradictory evidence.

6 January 2021: Cuomo DOH Fines Nursing Homes for Missing Data Reporting Deadline

Team Cuomo's latest nursing-home hypocrisy

The lead paragraph to this article describes the Cuomo administration's glaring hypocrisy:

How rich: The state is fining nursing homes for missing deadlines to report data — by as little as a minute — while it has withheld its own figures on nursing-home COVID deaths for months.

The article also indicates the state's acknowledged COVID-19 nursing home death toll has risen with the state's latest surge.

The death tally is officially around 7,400, but the true number could be twice that because New York, unlike other states, doesn't count nursing-home residents who died in hospitals. The state does keep track of the total, but it won't release it. Which is outrageous. And inexcusable.

5 January 2021: Cuomo Book Release Poorly Timed with COVID Surge

Cuomo's book touting 'leadership' during pandemic released just before huge spike in COVID cases, pundit notes

New York has had one of the larger fall/winter surges of coronavirus cases in the U.S. This article features a chart to put the timing of Governor Cuomo's self-authored book publication into perspective:

3 January 2021: FEMA Manager Rips Cuomo COVID Nursing Home Policies

Ex-FEMA honcho blasts vaccine rollout, nursing home deaths

This article covers a lot of ground, but here's the key summary where the topic of New York's COVID-19 nursing home deaths is involved:

In an exit interview with The Post, Tom Von Essen, who served as the New York regional director of the Federal Emergency Management and was city Fire Commissioner during the Sept. 11 attacks, slammed the nation's early response to the coronavirus pandemic, the slow pace of vaccine distribution — and called New York's nursing home death toll its "biggest failure" in the crisis.

The article also reports the Cuomo administration's response to his comments:

Responding to Von Essen's criticism, Cuomo spokesman Peter Ajemian said, "The reason Von Essen no longer has a job is because the federal government's COVID response was so awful that his boss was overwhelmingly voted out.

"He can do as many exit interviews as he wants but none of them will change the fact that over 350,000 Americans died as a result of the Trump administration's incompetence and failure to implement a coherent plan."

The Cuomo administration's efforts to shift the blame for COVID-19 deaths among the New York's nursing home residents following the implementation its disastrous 25 March 2020 directive are apparently continuing into the new year.

30 December 2020: "Official" Count of COVID Nursing Home Deaths Confirmed as Undercount - Local NY Paper

Nursing home death toll remains elusive, but it is certainly higher than official total

This is article from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle tries to work out the COVID-19 nursing home death toll in Monroe County and finds the state is underreporting the deaths, which they place at 50% of all COVID deaths in the county since March 2020. Using the state's "official" tally of nursing home resident deaths, the percentage of COVID-19 deaths statewide is 20%.

23 December 2020: Where Is The NY DOH's Data?

On 3 August 2020, New York State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker pledged to release the state's data on the number of nursing home residents who became infected with and who died of COVID-19 during 2020. Neither Zucker nor anyone else in Governor Cuomo's administration, including Governor Cuomo, has lifted a finger to make the state's public data on these deaths available to the public in the 142 days since.

16 December 2020: NY Republicans Ask President Trump to Force Release of Data Stonewalled by Cuomo

NY GOP asks Trump to force Cuomo to reveal number of COVID nursing home deaths

Governor Cuomo's and his administration's continued stonewalling on releasing New York's public data on the number of New York nursing home residents who became infected with and died of COVID-19 during 2020 is prompting this action.

10 December 2020: 89-Year Old Woman Imprisoned in Nursing Homes by Cuomo Directives

How Andrew Cuomo's Executive Order Trapped My 89-Year-Old Mother in COVID Limbo for Weeks

This article describes how Governor Cuomo's 10 May 2020 executive order, which reversed his administration's catastrophic 25 March 2020 order, is also having harmful outcomes.

5 December 2020: NY Nursing Homes Getting Set for Trump Operation Warp Speed Vaccinations

How NYC nursing homes are preparing for vaccine distribution

This article revisits statements made by Governor Cuomo prior to his administration's implementation of its 25 March 2020 directive forcing nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients without knowing whether they were still contagious:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo famously described COVID-19 in nursing homes as “like fire through dry grass.”

That's why there is such relief that nursing homes are at the top of the list for getting the Pfizer vaccine in mid-December.

“I can’t begin to tell you what a relief it is that there is a date on the calendar that this pandemic is going to be over,” Scott LaRue, the president of ArchCare, told PIX11 News.

And for the residents of Mary Manning Walsh and five other nursing homes run by the New York Catholic archdiocese, the date is Wednesday, Dec. 16. That’s when the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine is expected to be distributed to 1,700 Archcare residents and their 3,000 caregivers, pending final FDA approval.

And Scott LaRue is so pleased that the infrastructure is in place for a seamless, on-site distribution.

“Our pharmacy that serves our nursing homes was actually selected in addition to Walgreens and CVS as one of the distribution centers for the vaccine.,” LaRue told PIX11 News.

Nice to have some positive COVID-related nursing home news from New York for a change!

4 December 2020: Governor Cuomo Agrees to Allow Nursing Home Residents to Get COVID Vaccines

Cuomo: NY will opt into fed plan to vaccinate nursing home residents, staff

New York will participate in a Trump administration program aimed at vaccinating the elderly, sick Americans most at risk of death from coronavirus infections. The state is expected to have enough vaccine to treat some 170,000 people within the next two weeks.

27 November 2020: Former Aide Rakes Governor Cuomo's Character Over the Coals

Ex-aide Alexis Grenell rips Gov. Andrew Cuomo in blistering essay

The "ex-aide" in question is currently a media and political consultant, who worked for Andrew Cuomo when he served as New York's Attorney General prior to being elected Governor. This very much represents a "blue-on-blue" attack, following the governor's outburst at a press conference in the previous week. Here's a sample from her commentary that appeared in The Nation:

The Andrew Cuomo New Yorkers know and mostly tolerate, the snarling attack dog who gaslights fellow Democrats and deploys staff to call his female critics ‘f—-g idiots,’ dropped down to Earth last week. It was a hard landing after a long-distance love affair with a fanbase in a galaxy far, far away.

In the middle of one of his now Emmy Award–winning (apparently for using “television to inform and calm people around the world”) Red Room press conferences, the governor blew a gasket. The trouble started when Jimmy Vielkind from The Wall Street Journal asked the obvious question that every New York City public school parent wanted to know: Will schools be open tomorrow? Cuomo’s months (years, really) of pissing all over Mayor Bill de Blasio have naturally caused confusion over who owns this loser of a decision, compounded by the fact that the city (3 percent) and state’s (2.5 percent) data on infection rates don’t align. So rather than give a straight answer, the self-described “cool dude in a loose mood,” threw a Trump-style tantrum....

Cuomo undeniably offered a vision of competent, humane government at the height of the crisis, but this is who he is the rest of the time. It’s why he and his staff reflexively insult anyone who criticizes his handling of the pandemic or insists on returning to the normal system of democratic governance as Jefferson envisioned it. People like the relentlessly honest Bill Hammond from the Empire Center for Public Policy, who’s currently suing the administration to force it to disclose the real number of Covid-related nursing home deaths (“yet another publicity stunt from an arm of the far-right advocacy industrial complex”). Or Assembly member Ron Kim for suggesting that the governor acted against the public interest in letting his state be one of the two that grant hospitals and nursing homes broad corporate immunity (“politically motivated”). Or Democratic and Republican lawmakers who want to curtail the governor’s emergency powers after granting them in March, and return to their role as a co-equal branch of government (“stupid” and “completely political”).

Perhaps unsurprising given what Grennell describes of Andrew Cuomo's character, the Governor faces increasing pressure to own up to the negative elements of his administration's performance during the coronavirus pandemic. Politics abhors the vacuum created by blatant hypocrisy, and Governor Cuomo's pandemic book promotion and Emmy award have flooded New York's political atmosphere with it.

21 November 2020: Backlash For Governor Cuomo's Emmy Award

'Best Actor?': Andrew Cuomo slammed after announcement he will receive Emmy Award for coronavirus leadership

The report describes some of the reaction to Governor Cuomo's Emmy award.

21 November 2020: News/Entertainment Industry Sucks Up to Governor Cuomo With Emmy Award

Andrew Cuomo To Receive International Emmy For 'Masterful' COVID-19 Briefings

The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences broke with all precedent to provide a sitting politician Governor Andrew Cuomo with a public relations boost by awarding the Governor for his coronavirus broadcasts, despite the Governor's ongoing lack of transparency and candor regarding coronavirus-related deaths of nursing home residents under his administration's policies. Pulitzer prize award winning journalist Walter Duranty, who viewed and concealed Josef Stalin's Ukrainian genocide by starvation in the 1930s, could not be reached for comment.

20 November 2020: Excess Deaths Reveal Hidden Problems at Nursing Homes

Not just COVID: Nursing home neglect deaths surge in shadows

This article explores nursing home deaths beyond COVID-19, with some startling findings pointing to failures of both ethics and oversight. Starting with excess deaths:

A nursing home expert who analyzed data from the country’s 15,000 facilities for The Associated Press estimates that for every two COVID-19 victims in long-term care, there is another who died prematurely of other causes. Those “excess deaths” beyond the normal rate of fatalities in nursing homes could total more than 40,000 since March.

These extra deaths are roughly 15 percent more than you’d expect at nursing homes already facing tens of thousands of deaths each month in a normal year.

The analysis was provided the University of California's Institute of Aging's Stephen Kaye, who also found that many of these excess deaths took place at nursing homes where COVID-19 ran rampant:

Comparing mortality rates at homes struck by COVID-19 with ones that were spared, Kaye also found that the more the virus spread through a home, the greater the number of deaths recorded for other reasons. In homes where at least 3 in 10 residents had the virus, for example, the rate of death for reasons besides the virus was double what would be expected without a pandemic.

That suggests the care of those who didn’t contract the virus may have been impacted as healthcare workers were consumed attending to residents ill from COVID-19 or were left short-handed as the pandemic infected employees themselves.

Official state policies like New York's 25 March 2020 directive that forced nursing homes to blindly admit COVID-19 patients without testing to determine whether or not they were still contagious amplified the situation described above. The death toll associated with the directive is therefore greater than the number of deceased nursing home residents who tested positive for COVID-19.

The article also cites the state-mandated prohibition on visits by family members, which contributed to a deteriorating level of care provided to nursing home residents. Since family members both provide additional care for residents and take action to prevent neglect when observed, their state government-mandated absence ensured that the declining quality of care in these facilities went undetected. Governor Cuomo provided a shield of legal immunity for neglect to New York's nursing homes operators, many of whom are counted among his campaign contributors, during the pandemic.

19 November 2020: Opinion - Governor Cuomo's Hostile and Evasive Conduct Is Wrecking His Positive Image

Cuomo is obliterating his own (undeserved) COVID hero myth

The media has started noticing that Governor Cuomo's evasive and combative behavior in recent press conferences is aimed at obstructing their efforts to get information about state government policies.

18 November 2020: New Outbreak of COVID Infections at NY Nursing Home

COVID-19 Outbreak Recorded at Nursing Home

A new outbreak of at least 10 people associated with a nursing home in Montgomery County, New York (in the Mohawk Valley region of the state) has been reported. The outbreak comes as coronavirus infections are surging once more in the northeastern U.S.

18 November 2020: Governor Cuomo Gifted With Pay Raise

RAISE A STINK ‘Highest-paid governor’ Andrew Cuomo set to get $25,000 raise despite nursing home scandal & NY’s mixed Covid response

Governor Cuomo is set to get a raise, even though New York's state government revenues have plummeted and the Cuomo administration's continuing nursing home death scandal.

12 November 2020: 100 Days of Cuomo Administration NY DOH Stonewalling

100 Days later: Still no answers on nursing home patient deaths in NY

WRGB Albany's Greg Floyd marks the passage of 100 days since the Cuomo administration promised to make its coronavirus-related data on New York's nursing home residents available to the public:

It was back on August 3 that Commissioner Zucker was grilled at a legislative hearing by lawmakers of both parties about the directive and the department’s lack of transparency.

While we know that more than 6,600 residents died inside nursing homes, what we don’t know is how many nursing homes residents were sent to hospitals and died there. Democrats and Republicans are demanding that DOH release those figures, but DOH refuses to do so. Dr. Zucker promised frustrated lawmakers that he would reveal the numbers, but not until he was satisfied they were accurately compiled. Weeks ago Governor Cuomo provided a glimmer of hope when he said “It's not like there's a back room anywhere here, where we go back and we look at numbers and secret data. Whatever I know, I tell New Yorkers. Whatever the factors are, I tell New Yorkers.”

Immediately after that statement we contacted the Governor’s office, asking again for the full nursing home numbers, but our request was not answered.

So that brings us to today – we have started what we call the Zucker Counter, to track the total number of days the Commissioner has refused to release the numbers. The Zucker Counter now stands at 100 days – it will keep spinning until we get the numbers New Yorkers are waiting to hear.

How high will the "Zucker Counter" rise before Governor Cuomo acknowledges the extent of the coronavirus nursing home tragedy that occurred while his administration's 25 March 2020 directive was in effect?

7 November 2020: Where's the Promised Data on NY COVID Nursing Home Deaths?

Back on 1 September 2020, the Cuomo administration indicated it would make the state's coronavirus-related data on nursing home residents available to the public on 5 November 2020. No data was released on that date, nor has any data been released as of this update. Governor Andrew Cuomo's "disappointingly disingenuous" stonewalling continues.

2 November 2020: Editorial - Time for Team Cuomo's 'Data Dodge' to End

Cuomo’s data dodge: The governor needs to share New York’s actual nursing home COVID-19 death total

The editorial board of the New York Daily News opens up about their frustration with the Cuomo administration's stonewalling efforts.

Gov. Cuomo and the state Health Department are still failing to deliver on months' old promises to release the true tally of nursing home residents killed by COVID. The fact that some seeking the data have political motives is no excuse for stonewalling.

The official nursing home toll stands near 6,700 New Yorkers. But that only includes residents who died inside nursing homes, not the potentially thousands more who died after being transferred to hospitals.

The missing figures have not made legitimate questions disappear. Instead, the stalling only damages the credibility Cuomo and state health officials earned by capably handling the virus. Cuomo’s mantra-like repetition that New York ranks low among states in nursing home deaths as a share of total deaths, when he well knows that a fuller death count could change that statistic, is disappointingly disingenuous.

28 October 2020: U.S. DOJ Responds to Cuomo Stonewall by Ramping Up Investigation

Justice Department ramps up inquiry into NY care home deaths

This report describes the DOJ's expanded effort to get the nursing home coronavirus data it requested, which the Cuomo administration has been stonewalling on providing.

The U.S. Justice Department vastly expanded an inquiry Wednesday that could determine whether New York is undercounting coronavirus deaths among nursing home residents, demanding detailed data from hundreds of private facilities.

The demand ratchets up pressure on Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo after months of bipartisan criticism that the state’s official tally of 6,722 dead at long-term care facilities is probably off by thousands. That’s because New York, unlike nearly every other state, counts only residents who died on a nursing home’s property and not those who died after being taken to a hospital.

Cuomo’s administration has repeatedly refused to release such nursing home data to lawmakers and the media, including a public-records request from The Associated Press dating back to May.

This step indicates how seriously this matter is being taken by the DOJ, which will now dedicate more resources to its investigation. In refusing to cooperate with the DOJ's request for information within a reasonable period of time, the Cuomo administration has all but ensured this action, as the DOJ will no longer rely upon administration officials to obtain the information its independent investigators seek.

25 October 2020: Cuomo Benefited from "Quid pro Cuomo" Ads by NY Hospital Industry

Hospitals gave Gov. Andrew Cuomo a campaign booster shot: Devine

Miranda Devine's opinion column reviews OpenTheBooks' audit of campaign contributions to Governor Cuomo, in which the nonpartisan fiscal watchdog describes a pay-to-play relationship between contributors and the Governor. Devine focuses on the 'in-kind' support provided by the Greater New York Hospital Association.

When the pandemic hit in March, the association successfully lobbied the Cuomo administration to transfer COVID-positive patients to nursing homes to relieve pressure on hospitals.

Despite warnings from doctors that the move represented “a clear and present danger” to other nursing home residents, Cuomo issued his directive March 25, while federally provided beds in the Javits Center and USNS Comfort hospital ship mainly lay empty.

As we now know, the directive was a death sentence for an estimated 15,000 nursing home residents.

With the move proving to be a legal and public-relations nightmare, the association again struck gold when it lobbied for a budget provision limiting the ability of COVID-19 victims to file malpractice suits against hospitals and nursing homes.

Well satisfied with its investment in the governor, the association then spent millions on TV advertising that praised Cuomo’s management of the pandemic.

You could call the ads a quid pro Cuomo.

23 October 2020: Cuomo's Pandemic Leadership Book Silent on Number of COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Coronavirus Book: How Many Nursing Home Residents Died in New York

ProPublica's analysis delivers some pretty brutal observations:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic,” went on sale this month. Its publisher has hailed the governor’s courageous honesty.

“Real leadership, he shows, requires clear communication, compassion for others, and a commitment to truth-telling — no matter how frightening the facts may be,” one bit of advertising for the book reads.

Here’s one hard truth Cuomo has still yet to tell: how many New York nursing home residents have died of COVID-19.

Nine months into the pandemic, and three months after his health commissioner testified that he was hard at work counting nursing home deaths, Cuomo has not announced the grim total.

The article indicates the Cuomo administration transferred some 6,400 COVID-19 patients from hospitals to nursing homes in New York without testing to confirm whether or not they might still be contagious. It is quite possible a similar number of nursing home patients who became infected by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus introduced by these patients were moved in the opposite direction to hospitals where they died.

We think that avoiding political accountability and legal liability for those deaths is the most plausible explanation for Governor Cuomo's screaming silence on that subject in his book.

18 October 2020: Why a Nonpartisan Think Tank Sued Team Cuomo for NY Nursing Home Death Data

Churchill: The continuing quest for truth about NY's nursing home deaths

Another Chris Churchill column, which includes a discussion with Bill Hammond, the director of health policy for the Empire Center for Public Policy. The Center filed a lawsuit in the past week seeking public data records New York's health department has collected on COVID-19 illnesses and deaths among patients who resided in New York nursing homes in 2020 and has been refusing to provide to all those filing freedom of information requests for it:

Notably, the lawsuit does not even mention the controversial March 25 state order directing nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients. And when I talked with Bill Hammond, the Empire Center's director of health policy, he said too much has been made of the mandate by some critics of the governor. He was being very fair.

Hammond also said he initially didn't think the state's flawed nursing home count mattered all that much. That changed when he saw Cuomo and other officials using the partial count to suggest, in response to criticism of the mandate, that New York had done better at protecting nursing home residents from COVID-19 than other states.

"That drove me up a tree," Hammond told me. "They said it over and over again fully knowing it wasn't true."

Then Hammond watched in dismay as the Department of Health used the undercount in a joke of a report (my words, not Hammond's) that claimed the March 25 order was not a factor in nursing home fatalities. The report was not only bad science, but troubling evidence of the health department being used to shine the governor's star.

According to New York's official count, 6,600 nursing home residents died of COVID-19. Hammond, after analyzing death and nursing home occupancy rates, puts the actual toll at 10,000 and up — equal to at least 10 percent of the state's nursing home population.

"That is a public health catastrophe," Hammond said. "It demands our absolute attention, so we understand how we could have prevented it and what we can do to prevent it next time."

Hammond's estimate of total coronavirus nursing home deaths is consistent with the lower end of the range we've seen in the past several months.

18 October 2020: A Casket Full of Cuomo's Pandemic Leadership Books

Casket outside Brooklyn nursing home filled with 6,500 covers of Cuomo’s book

The 6,500 book covers represent the state's official count of COVID nursing home deaths, which most honest observers indicate is several thousand short of the full toll.

The protestors also faulted Governor Cuomo for stonewalling an independent investigation of his administration's coronavirus nursing home policies:

But Brooklyn protest organizer Peter Arbeeny griped at the rally — where about a dozen people added photos of their lost loved ones to the casket — that Cuomo “hasn’t given us an independent investigation [into the alleged nursing-home debacle] so we can get to the truth.

“The families in front of you deserve to know the truth,” said Arbeeny, whose 89-year-old Korean War veteran father, Norman, was among the at least 56 people to die from COVID-19 at the Brooklyn facility.

18 October 2020: Brooklyn Protests for Cuomo Nursing Home Deaths

Protesters Rally in Brooklyn, Blame Cuomo for Thousands of Nursing Home COVID-19 Deaths

This article features the following observation from one of the protestors:

"Any pandemic plan, which we spent a billion dollars on here in New York, would say 'protect the most vulnerable population,' first thing you do. Here's the most vulnerable population—nursing homes, like Cobble Hill Health Center. And we didn't do that. In fact, we did just the opposite,” said one demonstrator.

17 October 2020: Cuomo "We're No. 46" in Nursing Home Deaths Claim Rated "Mostly False"

Cuomo's claim on nursing home deaths not whole story

PolitiFact rates Governor Cuomo's 30 September 2020 claim that "we're No. 46 out of 50 states... we're 46th in terms of percentage of deaths in nursing homes" as "Mostly False". In giving the claim such a positive assessment, PolitiFact is showing its political bias in weirdly giving credit to the Governor for citing statistics that reference the state's official figures, which is really strange because those figures are widely viewed as greatly understating the COVID death toll among those who resided at New York's nursing homes in 2020. PolitiFact also ignores the Governor's role in stonewalling bipartisan calls for both independent investigations and the release of deceased nursing home patient data.

The "Mostly False" rating by PolitiFact really says quite a lot about its political bias. As independent analysts, we would rate the claim somewhere between "Entirely False" and "Pinochio's Nose Just Extended to the Moon and His Pants Are on Fire". Eventually, a fuller accounting of COVID-19 deaths among New York nursing home residents will come out and we'll find out who is better at honestly evaluating these claims.

16 October 2020: Opinion - Cuomo's Pandemic Leadership Book Undermined by Critical Omissions

Churchill: Failings of Cuomo's new book outweigh its charms

Times Union columnist Chris Churchill gives his take on Governor Cuomo's untimely coronavirus book release, finding the governor's book isn't telling anything close to the truth of what happened in the state. Here's a short sample of the review:

In the book, Cuomo cites a discredited state report blaming employees for introducing the virus to nursing homes. He suggests nursing homes didn't actually take in COVID patients, though his own health department says more than 6,300 were transferred to them.

Worse, he uses a bogus number to falsely claim, once again, that New York ranks low in the percentage of overall deaths tied to nursing homes.

As many of you know, the state's official nursing home tally of more than 6,600 fatalities is a significant undercount that excludes residents who ultimately died in hospitals. Other states don't count nursing home deaths that way, and, despite numerous requests and even a lawsuit, Cuomo has refused to release the honest number.

And you won't find it in his book.

14 October 2020: Cuomo Pandemic "Leadership" Book Short on Addressing Mistakes

Cuomo's book on NY pandemic outbreak short on state missteps

This AP report finds Governor Andrew Cuomo's book "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic" is short on new information, especially regarding mistakes made by his administration.

13 October 2020: Governor Cuomo Denies Panic in Issuing Deadly Directive

Today show interview between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Willie Geist - This interview is significant in that after denying the existence of his administration's 25 March 2020 directive to force nursing homes to blindly accept COVID patients without testing to determine if they were still contagious, which we archived here before New York's Department of Health later scrubbed it from their web server on 26 May 2020, he is now also denying the reason why he signed off on the policy:

"Would my Health Department have followed the federal guidance? Obviously not, knowing the political issue it was going to create. But there was no issue in reality is what I'm saying... because we never did have a scarcity of beds. We always had additional hospital beds and emergency beds, so no nursing home was forced to take someone. We never got there."

Here's a link to that portion of the video of the interview.

Based on his contemporary statements and actions in March 2020, April 2020, and May 2020, we think it is clear he did not believe that was true at the time. If he and other officials in his administration had really believed there was no issue with a scarcity of beds at the time, the https://cuomo-nursing-homes-timeline.blogspot.com/2020/03/25-march-2020.html would never have been issued.

13 October 2020: Cuomo Blames NY Post and GOP for NY Nursing Home Deaths Controversy

Cuomo blames GOP, NY Post for controversy over nursing home COVID-19 deaths

Governor Cuomo has written a book, which is hitting bookstores this month, in which he claims his political opposition and the newspaper that broke the story for the nursing home deaths that occurred while his 25 March 2020 directive forcing nursing homes to admit patients known to carry coronavirus infections without any testing to verify if they were still contagious was in effect are the ones responsible for the ensuing scandal. That would be the ongoing scandal for which his administration is stonewalling both bipartisan calls for independent investigations and for a full accounting of coronavirus-related deaths among the state's nursing home residents.

This report is also significant because it sets an upper estimate of 13,000 on the total number of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents in New York, based on the number of unfilled beds those facilities have today. Governor Cuomo and his administration have only officially acknowledged approximately 6,700 deaths at this time.

3 October 2020: Editorial: Cuomo Engaged in Nursing Home "Deception"

Andrew Cuomo's latest nursing home deception

The New York Post's editorial board weighed in here on the Governor's latest public relations tactic of making false claims and attempting to rewrite history to hide the role of Governor Cuomo's policies in contributing to coronavirus deaths among New York's nursing home residents.

2 October 2020: Opinion - Governor Cuomo's "Memory-Hole"

Andrew Cuomo is shamelessly trying to memory-hole his coronavirus nursing home fiasco

This opinion column homes in on a possible motive for Governor Cuomo's latest claim: "It's no surprise that Cuomo continues to dismiss concerns over the nursing home fiasco. He's got a reputation to protect." It also notes that he has a book coming out in less than two weeks, where the continuing scandal of the governor's nursing home scandal will contradict his claims of effectively leadership.

2 October 2020: Cuomo News Media Cheerleader Finds Cuomo Claim False

Facts First: Gov. Cuomo falsely claims New York nursing homes 'never needed' to take in Covid-positive patients

News network CNN, which employs Governor Cuomo's brother in a prominent prime-time editorial role and which has frequently provided Governor Cuomo with a "safe space" to advance his agenda, responded to the Governor's latest claim with a fact check, finding his claims to be false.

2 October 2020: Governor Cuomo Claims "It Never Happened"

'It never happened': Cuomo denies causing 6,500 nursing home deaths

This report describes Governor Andrew Cuomo's latest tactic to try to distance himself from his administration's disastrous coronavirus nursing home policies: bald-faced denial.