28 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Complains of Political Heat and Dodges Questions on Sunday Talkshows

28 June 2020 Sunday Morning Interviews

Two more reports, closely related in covering Governor Cuomo's Sunday morning interview rounds:

• Gov. Cuomo complains of ‘political heat’ over coronavirus nursing home deaths
• Cuomo dodges repeated questions on whether New York nursing homes are safe

Perhaps Governor Cuomo doesn't appreciate that dodging questions doesn't reduce political heat but increases it instead.

28 June 2020: Cuomo Claims Nursing Home Seniors Are "Safer" from COVID Than Seniors' Own Homes

Andrew Cuomo: Elderly New Yorkers 'safer' from coronavirus in nursing homes than in own homes

This report covers Governor Cuomo's latest attempt to minimize the negative consequences of his coronavirus nursing home policies. Here, it is important to note that the Governor does not specify if seniors in nursing homes would have safer before he finally terminated New York's directive to force nursing homes to admit both infected and potentially infected patients without testing on 10 May 2020, nor how long after that policy ended before the claim might have become true, nor if he believes the claim might only be true now because his previous policies already killed off the most vulnerable residents in New York's nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

27 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Reviews Early Drafts of His Pandemic Leadership Book

This timeline entry is based on information presented in a New York Times article published on 31 March 2021. The following excerpt provides a documented status of the book project:

Mr. Cuomo also utilized the resources of his office — from his inner circle to far more junior personnel — to help with the manuscript. In late June and early July, for example, a top aide to the governor, Stephanie Benton, twice asked assistants to print portions of the draft of the book, and deliver them to Mr. Cuomo at the Executive Mansion in Albany, where he lives.

One of Ms. Benton’s directives came on June 27, the same day that Ms. DeRosa convened an impromptu teleconference with several other top advisers to discuss the Health Department draft report.

The timing of this event is significant because several of Governor Cuomo's top advisers were also involved in doctoring a study produced by New York's Department of Health investigating whether the Cuomo administration's deadly deadly 25 March 2020 directive contributed to COVID deaths among New York nursing home residents.

Mr. Cuomo leaned on his top aide, Melissa DeRosa, for assistance. She attended video meetings with publishers, and helped him edit early drafts of the book. But there was also another, more pressing edit underway at the same time.

An impending Health Department report threatened to disclose a far higher number of nursing home deaths related to the coronavirus than the Cuomo administration had previously made public. Ms. DeRosa and other top aides expressed concern about the higher death toll, and, after their intervention, the number — which had appeared in the second sentence of the report — was removed from the final version.

Had the study reported the full extent of the COVID deaths among nursing home residents, Governor Cuomo's coronavirus pandemic performance would have been tarnished, which hurt the sales of the book promoting his leadership during 2020's coronavirus pandemic.

Here is where other items mentioned in these passages appear as key events in the timeline:

• 15 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Starts Writing Book on His Pandemic "Leadership"
• 6 July 2020: The NY DOH Report "Factors Associated with Nursing Home Infections and Fatalities in New York State During the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis"
• 11 August 2020: Cuomo Administration Stonewalling on COVID Deaths of Nursing Home Residents
• 16 October 2020: Opinion - Cuomo's Pandemic Leadership Book Undermined by Critical Omissions
• 11 February 2021: Team Cuomo Claims They Hid Data to Avoid Trump DOJ
• 31 March 2021: How the Timing of Governor Cuomo's Book Deal Fits into NY's COVID Nursing Home Deaths Scandal

26 June 2020: Cuomo's Deadly Directive Declared "A Mistake" in Congressional Testimony

New York's Covid nursing home policy was 'a mistake,' expert testifies

This report covers the testimony of Harvard health policy professor David C. Grabowski before the U.S. House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee's Health Subcommittee. Governor Cuomo has previously rejected requests to testify before Congress about his administration's coronavirus nursing home policies (see the second entry for 22 June 2020).

25 June 2020: White House Calls Out Cuomo's Deadly Directive, Cuomo Called Out for Lying About Nursing Home Deaths, CNN Shreds Credibility by Endorsing Governor Cuomo's Policies

NY governor is ‘alone to blame’ for forcing COVID-positive seniors into nursing homes, feds say

This report describes the response of the White House to Governor Cuomo's attempt to blame them for nursing home deaths that occurred in New York.

Churchill: On nursing homes, Cuomo won't admit the truth

This op-ed from an upper New York state newspaper weighs in on Governor Cuomo's campaign to deny responsibility for the policies that both endangered and killed so many residents of nursing homes and other assisted living facilities in New York.

CNN's Chris Cuomo lauds brother in panned interview: 'You're both awful'

This article describes the negative bipartisan reaction to the open display of partisan support favoring Governor Cuomo on CNN, where Governor Andrew Cuomo has been frequently interviewed by his brother during his prime-time newscast throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The 24 June 2020 broadcast was the first in which the journalist Cuomo asked the Governor to address any question about his administration's coronavirus nursing home policy scandal. Here's the introduction to the report:

CNN's Chris Cuomo was mocked after lauding his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), during an interview that one media publication called "a close approximation of a campaign endorsement," with the anchor declaring he was "wowed" by the governor's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The failure of CNN to present even a minimal level of professional objectivity in its reporting has damaged the news organization's credibility, with the governor's brother apparently having a large influence over shaping the network's coverage to be as favorable as it can to the benefit of Governor Cuomo, which has become a classic example of how a journalist's clear conflict of interest damages the public interest in addition to the reputation of their organization and the profession.

23 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Blames Nursing Home Staffs for Nursing Home Deaths

Gov. Cuomo blames sick nursing home staffers for infecting residents

This article reports on Governor Cuomo's latest attempt to avoid responsibility for his administration's deadly policies of both forcing New York nursing homes to admit patients without testing to verify if they might be active carriers for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and to allow nursing home staff members known to have been infected to continue working (see the entries for 29 April 2020 above), where they might spread the deadly infection among vulnerable residents. He's also doubled down again on the first policy:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday blamed sick nursing home staffers for infecting residents at the facilities — and doubled down on a controversial state order barring the facilities from turning away coronavirus-positive patients, saying, “It wasn’t a mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t a mistake because … you didn’t want to leave a senior citizen in the hospital for two weeks if you didn’t need to be in a hospital bed for two weeks,” Cuomo said on MSNBC of his Health Department’s widely scrutinized March 25 mandate, which may have fueled more than 6,000 confirmed and presumed COVID-19 deaths in New York.

The governor added, “By the time a person was transferred after nine or 10 days, they were no longer contagious and what all the data says is, the reason you had infections in nursing homes were because the staff brought in the infection.”

“You look at the communities that had the high infection rate overall — those were the communities that had a high infection rate — so it is that the staff got infected. They came to work and they brought in the infection.”

Previous reports have indicated that if a nursing home had a week's supply of personal protective equipment (or PPE) for staff members, meaning masks and gloves, state health officials considered that sufficient to protect both residents and staff members from the potential for infection (see entries for 26 April 2020 and 5 May 2020).

Meanwhile, nursing home staff members are the latest target in Governor Cuomo's political campaign to distract from his administration's leading role in spreading coronavirus infections in New York's nursing homes, where he has previously targeted the CDC, the FDA, the federal government, national and international health experts, nursing home operators, President Trump, Florida, and also the New York Post for blame in the state's nursing home deaths.

22 June 2020: 25% of U.S. COVID Deaths in Nursing Homes, Governors Cuomo (NY) and Murphy (NJ) Refuse to Come Clean

In U.S., 1 in 4 COVID-19 Deaths Are Residents of Nursing Homes

Grim statistics from the Associated Press' analysis of federally regulated nursing homes, which we should point out does not include assisted living facilities that are regulated by state governments (highlighted emphasis ours):

Nursing home residents account for nearly 1 in 10 of all the coronavirus cases in the United States and more than a quarter of the deaths, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data released Thursday.

As federal data collection becomes more robust, a clearer picture is emerging of the ravages of COVID-19 in nursing homes. About 1.4 million older and medically frail people live in such facilities, a tiny share of the American population that has borne a crushing burden from the pandemic. Most residents have been in lockdown since early March, isolated from families and friends, even in death.

Nationwide, nursing homes reported nearly 179,000 suspected or confirmed cases among residents and 29,497 deaths. The latest figures include about 95% of nursing homes.

AP’s analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that nearly half of the more than 15,000 nursing homes have reported suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of June 7. About 1 in 5 facilities — or 21% — have reported deaths.

The state of New York, which is known to be underreporting COVID-19 nursing home-related deaths in its official count of at least 6,300 deaths, would account for at least 21% of these deaths. New Jersey, which copied New York's deadly coronavirus nursing home policy, adds another 6,180 lab-confirmed deaths to the national total accounts for another 21% of all COVID-19 nursing home deaths in the U.S.

NY’s Cuomo, NJ’s Murphy ignore request to explain controversial nursing home policies

Both New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy are rejecting requests to testify before the U.S. House of Representative's Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis about the policies their states implemented forcing nursing homes to admit COVID-19 infected patients, claiming the request is "pure politics" and that the committee lacks oversight authority.

We will note that rejecting the requests to testify before Congress will also limit their exposure to legal liabilities that might arise from it.

21 June 2020: Elected New York Legislators Want Investigation of Cuomo Nursing Home Policies

NYS lawmakers still want hearings on Covid-19 nursing home deaths

Although New York's assembly is controlled by Governor Cuomo's political party, there are continuing bipartisan calls for public hearings into the Cuomo administration's policies that led to so many deaths in the state's nursing homes and assisted living facilities. This article notes that many of these deaths fell heavily among minorities.

20 June 2020: Editorial - Governor Cuomo's "Big Lie"

Andrew Cuomo’s big lie on nursing homes and The Post

This New York Post editorial calls Governor Cuomo out for his dishonest attempts to deflect blame for his administration's deadly coronavirus nursing home policy, which the governor is trying to make appear to be a partisan effort. As the Post's editors make clear, the news coverage demonstrates that's not the case, which you can confirm for yourself by simply scrolling up and reviewing the stories we've linked throughout our coverage.

19 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Claims Criticism of Deadly Nursing Home Policy is "Pure Politics"

Gov. Cuomo: Criticism of NY nursing home deaths a 'shiny object,' 'pure politics'

This report of a WAMC radio interview Governor Cuomo gave on Friday, 19 June 2020 shows the governor's continuing attempts to avoid accountability in establishing New York's deadly coronavirus nursing home policies. He also blames the federal government and parts of the media for his problems, the latter for focusing on his administration's nursing home scandal.

18 June 2020: Opinion - Governor Cuomo's Expanding Search for COVID Nursing Home Death Scapegoats

Op-Ed: Andrew Cuomo: Searching for Scapegoats To Blame for His Deadly Coronavirus Order

This op-ed lists many the individuals and groups who Governor Cuomo has been attempting to blame for the unchecked spreading of deadly coronavirus infections in New York's nursing homes in order to distract from his and his administration's role in the scandal.

17 June 2020: Cuomo Claims Sick COVID Patients Dumped in Nursing Homes "Probably Not Contagious"

Cuomo: Coronavirus patients put in nursing homes ‘probably not contagious’

This report shows the latest gyrations by the Cuomo administration to avoid accountability for deaths that resulted from its "reverse triage" policy of moving coronavirus-infected patients from hospitals to nursing homes to make more beds available in the hospitals. Here, the administration is seeking to blame hypothetical "asymptomatic workers" for both introducing and spreading coronavirus infections in nursing homes, despite the state moving over 4,300 such patients into nursing homes.

The report also indicates Cuomo administration officials are now apparently willing to throw New York Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker under the bus in attempting to shift blame away from the Governor's office for issuing the infamous 25 March 2020 directive forcing nursing homes to admit COVID-19 positive patients.

17 June 2020: No One in Cuomo Administration Willing to Admit Who Wrote, Approved Deadly Directive

Cuomo silent on who approved coronavirus nursing home policy

This report demonstrates both a lack of candor and transparency on the part of Governor Cuomo concerning how he and his administration came to adopt its deadly coronavirus nursing home policy and follows up ProPublica's "Fire Through Dry Grass" article from 16 June 2020, which describes the motive of Governor Cuomo and New York's public health officials had, which we'll emphasize here:

And a Columbia University expert, Dr. Charles Branas, told ProPublica that the March 25 directive may have increased the state’s COVID-19 death toll by an as-yet-unknown order of magnitude and cited an Associated Press estimate on the number of coronavirus patients who were admitted to nursing homes as a result of the order.

“If you introduce 4,500 people sick with a potentially lethal disease into a vulnerable and notoriously imperfectly monitored population, people are apt to die,” said Branas, chairman of the Epidemiology Department at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.

Branas also said the since-abandoned policy “looks like it was intended as a ‘reverse triage’ strategy to clear acute and critical care hospital beds, regardless of whether those beds had people with COVID-19 or not.”

Branas' assessment of the Cuomo administration's motives aligns with our previous analysis, where we described the policy they adopted for the purpose of transferring coronavirus-infected patients from hospitals to nursing homes to avoid overwhelming the hospitals' capacity as an "emergency triage strategy", but Branas' "reverse triage" terminology better and more precisely describes the strategy.

16 June 2020: Analysis - How Cuomo's Directive Led to Excess COVID Deaths at NY Nursing Homes, National Nursing Home Deaths Top 50,000

“Fire Through Dry Grass”: Andrew Cuomo Saw COVID-19’s Threat to Nursing Homes. Then He Risked Adding to It.

This report starts with the story of a nursing home with 120 residents in upper New York state that went from having no COVID-19 patients, to being forced to admit one patient known to be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus under the Cuomo administration's policy on 3 April 2020, to recording 18 deaths at the facility from COVID-19 six weeks later. It also tells the story of another nursing home in the same New York county that defied Governor Cuomo's directive and refused to admit any COVID-19 infected patients, which would go on to not record any COVID-19 cases or deaths over the same period and points out the county's hospitals were never at risk of being overwhelmed by the epidemic, making forced patient transfers unnecessary. The report goes on to identify multiple points of failure on the part of the Cuomo administration and describes the developing acrimony as state officials seek to escape accountability.

As U.S. Nursing-Home Deaths Reach 50,000, States Ease Lockdowns

The Wall Street Journal estimates deaths in U.S. nursing homes account for over 40% of the 116,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S. They also think that's an undercount because of how some states are reporting these deaths. See the entries for 26 May 2020 for more discussion on that topic as it relates to New York.

15 June 2020: General Recognition of COVID Forecast Model Failures

Forecasting for COVID-19 has failed

This analysis on the International Institute of Forecasters blog examines the multiple failures in public policy that have resulted from following poor forecasting models. The following passage is directly applicable to what happened in New York, but certainly applies in other states that aped its policies:

Experienced modelers drew early on parallels between COVID-19 and the Spanish flu [2] that caused >50 million deaths with mean age at death being 28. We all lament the current loss of life. However, as of June 8, total fatalities are ~410,000 with median age ~80 and typically multiple comorbidities.

Predictions for hospital and ICU bed requirements were also entirely misinforming. Public leaders trusted models (sometimes even black boxes without disclosed methodology) inferring massively overwhelmed health care capacity (Table 1) [3]. However, eventually very few hospitals were stressed, for a couple of weeks. Most hospitals maintained largely empty wards, waiting for tsunamis that never came. The general population was locked and placed in horror-alert to save the health system from collapsing. Tragically, many health systems faced major adverse consequences, not by COVID-19 cases overload, but for very different reasons. Patients with heart attacks avoided visiting hospitals for care [4], important treatments (e.g. for cancer) were unjustifiably delayed [5], mental health suffered [6]. With damaged operations, many hospitals started losing personnel, reducing capacity to face future crises (e.g. a second wave). With massive new unemployment, more people may lose health insurance. The prospects of starvation and of lack of control for other infectious diseases (like tuberculosis, malaria, and childhood communicable diseases for which vaccination is hindered by the COVID-19 measures) are dire [7,8].

We think it will take years to fully learn the lessons the flawed coronavirus models have taught.

15 June 2020: Evidence of Governor Cuomo, Staff Writing Book on His Pandemic "Leadership" as Early as Mid-June 2020

This timeline entry is based on information presented in a New York Times article published on 31 March 2021. That report identifies "mid-June" as the period when Governor Cuomo and members of his staff began writing a book proclaiming his "leadership" during 2020's coronavirus pandemic. Here's the relevant portion of the article:

The book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic,” was a dramatic retelling of the battle against the virus in a state where nearly 50,000 people have died. It would garner Mr. Cuomo a fleeting spot on the best-seller list.

Emails and an early draft of Mr. Cuomo’s book obtained by The New York Times indicate that the governor was writing it as early as mid-June, relying on a cadre of trusted aides and junior staffers for everything from full-scale edits to minor clerical work, potentially running afoul of state laws prohibiting use of public resources for personal gain.

This is the earliest entry in the timeline related to what would prove to be Governor Cuomo's ill-fated book project. To see where it appears later in the timeline, search "book" in the Search This Blog feature!

14 June 2020: Cuomo Administration Shorted PPE Supplies for Nursing and Group Homes

Watchdog tells feds NY shorted group homes on masks, gowns during height of virus

This report follows the the story of a complaint filed by Disability Rights New York, which it identifies as a "federally funded nonprofit watchdog" on 7 April 2020 regarding how state officials were allocating personal protective equipment among group homes, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities that provide care for disabled residents in New York. Here's an excerpt describing the environment these facilities were put under by the Cuomo administration's policies for allocating scarce resources like personal protective equipment (PPE):

Operators of group homes at the apex of the virus – March through May -- had to scrounge, scouring pharmacies for masks, often paying price-gouging costs, pleading with county disaster offices, and wearing homemade face coverings and disposable protection that sometimes had to be reused, according to interviews with Disability Rights New York, group home operators and their residents’ advocates.

The Cuomo administration appears to have prioritized the interests of public hospitals, which are run by officials appointed by state or local governments, at the expense of all other health care facilities in the state of New York during the state's 2020 coronavirus epidemic, which were apparently viewed as dumping grounds by the state's public health officials. Like the elderly at the state's nursing homes, the disabled are victims of systematic discrimination against them by Cuomo administration.

13 June 2020: Cuomo's Claims Blaming CDC Guidance for NY COVID Nursing Home Deaths "Mostly False"

New York’s nursing home policy was not fully in line with CDC

This fact check from the PolitiFact directly challenges Governor Cuomo's claims that his administration's nursing home policies were fully compliant with the CDC's guidelines. In addition to the guidance we've pointed to earlier in this timeline, they cite the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Report issued a week before the Cuomo administration adopted its policy forcing nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients, which specifically recommended that "in the context of rapidly escalating COVID-19 outbreaks in much of the United States, it is critical that long-term care facilities implement active measures to prevent introduction of COVID-19."

PolitiFact concludes Governor Cuomo's claims his policies followed CDC guidance are "mostly false".

12 June 2020: National Attention for Cuomo Nursing Home Scandal - What Guidance Did the CDC Provide States for Nursing Homes?

Rep. Steve Scalise questions Dem governors on decision to send coronavirus patients to nursing homes

The move to initiate an independent, federal investigation of what happened in New York's nursing homes and other states' assisted living facilities that copied Governor Cuomo's policies is gaining some steam. This article is also noteworthy in that Representative Scalise updates the death tolls for several states:

"The decision of several governors to essentially mandate COVID positive patients go back to their nursing homes ended up being a death sentence," Scalise said in a briefing for the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. "New York has suffered 6,318 deaths in nursing homes. New Jersey, 6,327. Compare that to Florida -- a retirement state -- 1,454. On a per capita basis, nursing homes deaths in New York are 500 percent higher than Florida and New Jersey is 1,120 percent higher than Florida."

Our analysis of what happened in New Jersey's nursing homes and assisted living facilities is here.

Another interesting note:

Cuomo has defended his directive as in line with guidance from the Trump administration and notes that other states did the same thing. But Scalise noted that the Trump administration changed its guidance in mid-March to caution against sending coronavirus patients to nursing homes "not prepared" to handle the disease. New York's policy remained in place until May 10.

Here is the CDC's original guidance for nursing homes from 13 March 2020. Here is a copy of the guidance that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is the federal agency that oversees nursing homes, issued on 17 March 2020, which explicitly states the guidance:

What to Do with Residents with Confirmed or Suspected COVID-19 Diagnoses

CMS’s guidance also instructs nursing homes with residents suspected of having COVID-19 to contact their local health department and transfer the affected resident to a hospital if they do not have an airborne infection isolation room and the symptoms warrant such transfer. Nursing homes that are asked to accept residents diagnosed with COVID-19 from a hospital may accept the residents as long as the facility can follow then-current CDC guidance for Transmission-Based Precautions. This guidance is changing rapidly as the CDC learns more about the COVID-19 virus and adapts protocols accordingly. Facilities are advised to continue normal admissions, and if possible, dedicate a unit/wing to serve as a step-down unit where such residents remain for 14 days with no symptoms for any resident coming or returning from hospitals where a case of COVID-19 is/was present.

The Cuomo administration removed the discretion of nursing homes had for accepting known coronavirus-infected patients in its infamous 25 March 2020 directive, disregarding the guidance issued by the federal agency that directly oversees nursing homes.

11 June 2020: Cuomo Retreats from Failed Staff Testing Policy, Keeps Blocking Families from NY Nursing Homes

Team Cuomo quietly retreats from yet another nursing-home mistake

Two days after nursing homes pushed back, the Cuomo administration has backed off its ineffective staff testing policies for nursing homes.

Reopen NY: Governor Cuomo calls no visitation at nursing homes 'better than death'

Showing once again the open hypocrisy of his coronavirus nursing home policies, Governor Cuomo is continuing to prevent family members from visiting their family members in assisted living facilities to keep residents from the risk of being exposed to deadly coronavirus infections. But remember, he and his administration thought it was A-OK to transfer 100% known-to-be-infected patients to those facilities and to allow 100% know-to-be-infected staff members to work at them, which ensured residents would become infected.

10 June 2020: Opinion - Cuomo Policies Failing NY Nursing Homes

Gov. Cuomo is still failing New York’s nursing homes

Indeed. This is an opinion piece by Elaine Healy, MD, a practicing geriatrician and nursing-home medical director. She picks up on many of themes in the previous entry and emphasizes how arbitrary and often counterproductive the Cuomo administration's policies for nursing homes have been in practice.

9 June 2020: Nursing Homes Testing Staff But Get No Results, Cuomo Administration Not Counting Probable COVID Deaths

Nursing home groups want Cuomo to scrap staff coronavirus testing policy

It's the reason why nursing home groups want to scrap New York's mandated test regime for their employees that makes this report highly relevant to Governor Cuomo's handling of policies for nursing homes during the state's coronavirus epidemic. In one nursing home cited in the report, all staff members have been tested four times during the last three weeks, as required under Governor Cuomo's policy, but they have yet to see a single result from any of that testing, making all that testing useless for making decisions about how to protect both staff members and nursing home residents from infections.

New York State Is Not Counting Probable Covid Deaths

Since this article is posted by Gothamist on a page that features frequent updates, you may need to scroll down for the story. Governor Cuomo has adopted a policy that both deviates from the CDC's guidelines and is hiding the full extent of how deadly the coronavirus epidemic has been throughout the state of New York. Since the Cuomo administration appears to be arbitrarily following CDC guidelines, this latest inconsistency blows yet another hole in the governor's claim that his deadly COVID nursing home policy was compelled by CDC guidelines.

7 June 2020: The Human Cost of a "Crushed" Curve

Cuomo, under fire for coronavirus response, declares New York 'crushed' the curve

This article covers a Twitter message Governor Cuomo issued. Here's the text of the governor's tweet:

“We did the impossible. On Monday NYC will open phase one. We didn’t just flatten the curve — we crushed it. #NYTough"

Recall that the goal of "flattening the curve" was meant to keep hospitals from exceeding their capacity. In his panic to avoid that situation, Governor Cuomo "crushed" the curve by sending thousands of coronavirus-infected patients out of hospitals and into nursing homes and assisted living facilities for the elderly where the infection spread and killed thousands, all while using just a tiny fraction of all the additional capacity that was specifically added to New York's health care system to cope with the epidemic.

4 June 2020: Governor Cuomo Caught in a Self-Made Trap

Cuomo still stands by coronavirus nursing home order despite death toll

This report covers what Governor Cuomo said in a radio interview. Here's an excerpt from the New York Post's coverage:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday yet again doubled down on his decision to send coronavirus patients to nursing homes from hospitals — despite it potentially factoring in to more than 5,000 deaths.

The governor reiterated a March 25 health department mandate that required all nursing homes to accept residents who tested positive for COVID-19.

“So the choice is, leave a person in a hospital bed for two weeks until they test negative, or send them to a nursing home that can handle it and quarantine them and isolate them,” Cuomo said in an interview with Jay Oliver on Long Island News Radio.

“The nursing home is a better choice for that senior person, especially when you’re in a time when you need the hospital beds for people who are going to die without a ventilator.”

In many ways, Governor Cuomo's statements reflect his political and legal plight - he can neither afford to acknowledge the failure of judgment that led to his choice to implement the state's deadly policy without jeopardizing his political future, nor can he acknowledge his responsibility for actions that appear to qualify as criminally negligent homicide in New York or as involuntary manslaughter under federal law.

2 June 2020: A Deeper Look at National COVID Nursing Home Deaths

More than 40,000 coronavirus deaths tied to US nursing homes

This report is more comprehensive than the count released by CMS yesterday, including deaths that have occurred in assisted care facilities in addition to federal regulated nursing homes. The data still undercounts New York's contribution because of the state's deceptive death accounting practices. The figure also combines the deaths of residents and staff at nursing homes and other assisted living facilities, which we know from New Jersey's data is predominantly made up of the deaths of the residents of these facilities.

1 June 2020: Families to Stay Locked Out, Federal Stats on COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Cuomo administration won't say when nursing home visits will resume

Since 7 March 2020, the Cuomo administration has blocked family members from visiting relatives living in New York's nursing homes. Originally presented as a protective measure for nursing home residents from coronavirus infections, this policy also worked to prevent the discovery of the extent to which infected patients were being placed in these facilities to expose residents to the risk of infections in the following weeks.

Nearly 26,000 nursing home coronavirus deaths reported to feds

This Associated Press report provides partial national level data on the number of coronavirus deaths at nursing homes in the U.S. Here's an excerpt:

Federal health authorities have received reports of nearly 26,000 nursing home residents dying from COVID-19, according to materials prepared for the nation’s governors. That number is partial and likely to go higher.

A letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports more than 60,000 cases of coronavirus illness among nursing home residents. A copy of the letter and an accompanying chart were provided to The Associated Press.

The numbers, which had been promised by the end of May, are partial. The letter said the data are based on reports received from about 80% of the nation’s 15,400 nursing homes.

The data applies only to federally regulated nursing homes, which excludes assisted living facilities regulated by state governments. The data also only covers the period through 24 May 2020 for the portion of nursing homes reporting deaths of their residents. Back on 9 May 2020, AP reported a similar figure for the nation, with New York's official nursing home death count at 5,300, but that's with the state's public health officials deliberately misclassifying the deaths of nursing home residents that occurred outside of the nursing homes where they resided when they were transferred to hospitals at the ends of their lives.

The numbers being reported by CMS will be much harder for the Cuomo administration to "cook", since they are focusing on reporting coronavirus-related deaths of people who were residing at nursing homes during the last several months.

31 May 2020: Cuomo Administration Cooks Nursing Home Death Numbers To Mislead Public

Cuomo Cooks Coronavirus Numbers to Defend Controversial Nursing Home Policy

While we've known for weeks that New York's public health officials have been deliberately misclassifying deaths attributed to COVID-19 infections that resulted from the viral exposure of patients in the state's nursing homes to instead attribute them to hospitals, this report describes the Cuomo administration's use of those misleading statistics to try to minimize the appearance of its role in producing the deadly toll that resulted from the administration's policy of forcing nursing homes to admit patients known to have coronavirus infections.

29 May 2020: Other States Copy and Paste NY Nursing Home Immunity Policy

States Are Copying and Pasting Immunity Laws for Nursing Home Executives

This article is not directly about New York but discusses the pay-for-play politics the nursing home industry used to secure its "get out of jail" pass from Governor Cuomo as the coronavirus epidemic raged in New York, where New York's law exempting nursing homes from lawsuits for fatally exposing residents to the viral infection has become the template for similar laws in other states. Corruption, it seems, spreads like a virus.

28 May 2020: Who is COVID-19 Killing?

The Most Important COVID-19 Statistic: 43% Of U.S. Deaths Are From 0.6% Of The Population

The "0.6%" of the population referred to in this headline is the percentage of Americans who live in nursing homes and other assisted-living facilities. This article features some of the better analysis we've seen on the topic and contrasts the approaches taken by the governors of Florida and New York in following the CDC's guidelines as respective examples of what to do and what not to do in protecting residents of nursing homes from viral infections.

The authors note that the "43%" figure in the headline would be considerably higher if New York's public officials were more honest about where patients who were counted as dying in hospitals from COVID-19 were exposed to the virus.

27 May 2020: Cuomo Polls Poorly for Nursing Home Policy, What Laws May Cuomo Have Broken?

New Yorkers disapprove of Gov. Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes: poll

News detailing Governor Cuomo's delinquency in addressing the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in New York and is recent attempts to deflect responsibility for his state's policy forcing nursing homes to admit contagious coronavirus patients by blaming both President Trump and the CDC for it is starting to hurt his standing in public opinion polls.

Andrew Cuomo gave immunity to nursing home execs after big campaign donations

This article from the Guardian, a left-wing UK newspaper, connects the dots between campaign contributions from the state's government-regulated nursing home industry and the immunity from law suits for coronavirus deaths they were awarded just prior to the growing number of coronavirus deaths directly resulting from Governor Cuomo's deadly policies became a major scandal.

How is Gov. Cuomo Not Guilty of Involuntary Manslaughter?

This analysis considers what federal laws Governor Cuomo and New York's chief public health officer, Howard Zucker, may have violated in New York's coronavirus nursing home scandal. Here's the conclusion:

Given the state of knowledge on March 25, when Cuomo and Zucker enacted their policy, it is fair to say that New York’s policy amounted to a death sentence for many nursing home residents — deaths that would not have occurred but for this policy. And it is fair to say that both Cuomo and Zucker knew it. It is also textbook involuntary manslaughter. 18 U.S. Code § 1112, defines the federal crime of Manslaughter as the commission, “without due caution and circumspection, of a lawful act which might produce death.” The President should invite the AG to begin an appropriate investigation.

There's also the matter of how long the policy was allowed to continue after New York passed its peak in hospital resources being consumed because of the coronavirus epidemic, when the faulty reasoning that prompted state officials to initiate the policy no longer applied, which also appears to satisfy the federal legal definition for manslaughter. The sooner a federal investigation is mounted, the better.

26 May 2020: Deadly Directive Scrubbed from NY Department of Health Website

Order Forcing Nursing Homes to Take Covid Patients Scrubbed from N.Y. State Website

This report reveals New York's Department of Health has removed its deadly order mandating nursing homes admit coronavirus-infected patients from its web site (it was linked here). Fortunately, others made a point of preserving multiple copies of the order at the Internet Archive.

Betsy McCaughey: Cuomo nursing home scandal – Deaths likely closer to 10,000 and it gets worse

The former lieutenant governor of New York and the current chair of Committee to Reduce Infectious Diseases, a public advocacy group who seeks to reduce the incidence of preventable infections at U.S. hospitals, who has been serving in that role for several years, estimates the death toll from New York's deadly coronavirus nursing home scandal could be around double the state's current figures if the number of patients who were transferred from nursing homes to hospitals before dying were correctly added to the state's official death toll from nursing homes.

25 May 2020: Governor Cuomo Blames Bad COVID Models for NY Nursing Home Deaths

“We All Failed”— The Real Reason Behind NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Surprising Confession

It took until Memorial Day for Governor Cuomo to acknowledge the models he and other public officials relied upon in setting policy was wrong. Here are excerpts from Cuomo's comments at the news briefing that took place on the U.S.S. Intrepid museum in New York City (emphasis ours):

"Now, people can speculate. People can guess. I think next week, I think two weeks, I think a month. I'm out of that business because we all failed at that business. Right? All the early national experts. Here's my projection model. Here's my projection model. They were all wrong. They were all wrong.

"There are a lot of variables. I understand that. We didn't know what the social distancing would actually amount to. I get it, but we were all wrong. So, I'm sort of out of the guessing business, right?”

Unfortunately, much of Governor Cuomo's more recent actions are consistent with his seeking to muddy the waters in a deliberate efforts to avoid personal responsibility for costing the lives of thousands of elderly New Yorkers, where a full accounting of nursing home residents impacted by his decisions based on the models would cover over 10% of the names listed on the front page of the 24 May 2020 Sunday edition of the New York Times to represent all the COVID-19 deaths in all the U.S.

23 May 2020: Cuomo Blames CDC Guidance for NY Nursing Home Deaths

Cuomo still defends policy of filling nursing homes with coronavirus patients

This article details Governor Cuomo's continued attempts to avoid taking personal responsibility for the deadly order mandating nursing homes admit patients known to be infected with the coronavirus by blaming both President Trump and guidance provided by the CDC for his administration's actions.

22 May 2020: How Many COVID-19 Patients Were Dumped Into NY Nursing Homes?

AP count: Over 4,500 virus patients sent to NY nursing homes

This article delves into just how many contagious patients New York officials transferred from hospitals to nursing homes, where they would infect staff members, and subsequently, highly vulnerable patients.

21 May 2020: Cuomo Cheerleader CNN's Credibility Enters Rapid Phase of Collapse

Chris Cuomo teases brother Andrew with giant test swab

It's utterly amazing that anyone professing to be a serious journalist, editor, or manager at CNN thought the following clip from their Cuomo Prime Time news broadcast of 21 May 2020 was a good idea.

This featurette took a lot of prep time to execute. Things had to be purchased to fabricate the props. Higher-ups at CNN had to sign off on the expenses and the commitment of labor to produce it. Coordination with Governor Cuomo had to occur to enable it.

In short, CNN didn't shred its journalistic credibility by accident. It was an inside job by those who were all to willing to make themselves the servants of the "Cuomo the hero" narrative they were trying to push.

20 May 2020: Cuomo Blames President Trump for Nursing Home Deaths

Gov. Cuomo: ‘Ask President Trump’ about nursing home deaths

This article reports on Governor Cuomo's attempt to blame President Trump for nursing home deaths that occurred as a direct result of his state's policy. He claims the guidance the CDC issued is at fault, but if that were true, we would have seen COVID-19 infected patients transferred from hospitals to nursing homes in all states, instead of just a handful, like New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, to name the worst offenders.

Meanwhile other states following the exact same CDC guidelines adopted effective safeguards to prevent the contagion from spreading into nursing homes. New York Representative Elise Stefanik provided a rather complete refutation of Governor Cuomo's claim.

19 May 2020: New York Wasn't Counting Nursing Home Resident COVID Deaths

NY didn’t count nursing home coronavirus victims for weeks; then, a stumbling rush for a death toll

There's an old saying among quality engineers: "What gets measured gets done". This article reveals that New York's public health officials weren't measuring COVID-19 infection at nursing homes and other long term care facilities in the state, which is to say they were blind to their plight (because they weren't even asking until 17 April 2020) and to the deadly crisis they had unleashed within them. Bureaucracy kills through negligence.

The article also presents a chart showing New York's coronavirus deaths by age group. Here's our adaptation of the chart:

17 May 2020: "Who Can We Prosecute For Those Deaths? Nobody."

Cuomo says "nobody" should be prosecuted in N.Y. for deaths caused by coronavirus

Here's the video from CBS News:

Perhaps by "nobody", he's referring to himself, his administration, and the state's public health officials, who he already effectively exempted from investigation back on 7 May 2020. On the other hand, if he's wondering what state law might apply to the people involved, we would suggest New York Penal Law Section 125.10, for criminally negligent homicide, might be somewhat relevant, if not Section 125.20 (manslaughter in the first degree).

A deadly coronavirus infestation of New York's nursing homes certainly wasn't "inevitable". Not until the Cuomo administration's policy went into effect.

15 May 2020: Cuomo Administration Confirms NY Is Miscounting Nursing Home Deaths

EXCLUSIVE: New York Admits Knowingly Undercounting Nursing Home Deaths After Quietly Changing Reporting Rules

There is no longer any question of whether New York has been deliberately understating the number of deaths related to the Cuomo administration's coronavirus nursing home scandal:

New York’s coronavirus tracker “currently does not include out of facility deaths,” NYSDOH spokeswoman Jill Montag told the DCNF. “Deaths of nursing home and adult care facility residents that occurred at hospitals is accounted for in the overall fatality data on our COVID-19 tracker.”

In other words, New York’s nursing home and adult care facility coronavirus deaths tracker omits any individuals who contracted coronavirus while living at a long-term care facility but died in a hospital.

The DCNF has confirmed our observation from 9 May 2020 (see above). Or if you don't want to scroll up that far, check out the chart with 12 May 2020's entry. Based on what other states in the northeast are reporting for the infection rate within their nursing homes and long term care facilities, we think New York's count for the number of confirmed coronavirus cases within its elderly care facilities are off by a factor of about 5.

12 May 2020: Charting New York's COVID Deaths

Here's an annotated chart showing the rolling 7-day total of confirmed cases and deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the state of New York. Here is the source for the referenced data for nursing homes cases and deaths.

Why a rolling 7-day total? The daily data shows a cyclical pattern, with the numbers dipping every seven days, coinciding with weekends when many state and local government officials aren't working. Presenting the rolling 7-day counts smooths out that source of day-to-day volatility in the reported data.

Meanwhile, there are new calls for an independent investigation of the Cuomo administration's policies by state legislators, including calls for a federal investigation, which would resolve the conflict of interest issues inherent in the state attorney general's limited investigation.

11 May 2020: New York City Is U.S. COVID Ground Zero

The Real Center of the Pandemic

This article reveals nursing homes to be the true 'ground zero' of the pandemic in the state of New York, accounting for 22% of confirmed cases despite representing less than 1% of the state's population.

10 May 2020: Cuomo Orders COVID Testing for Nursing Home Staff as Deadly Directive Is Finally Rescinded

Cuomo orders biweekly coronavirus tests for nursing home workers

This article reveals that Governor Cuomo has finally acted to make COVID-19 testing of nursing home staff a regular practice. Wait, what? Why wasn't this done in any of the 64 days that have elapsed since the governor declared a state of emergency for the coronavirus epidemic in New York and began block family members from visiting nursing home patients?

Andrew Cuomo FINALLY Reverses Order Forcing Nursing Homes To Take COVID Patients, Demands Testing For Care Workers

Meanwhile, 46 days after the Cuomo administration's infamous order was issued, which proved to be the equivalent of throwing lit matches on "dry grass", Governor Cuomo has decided to stop it. Governor Cuomo has officially overruled the state's Department of Health 25 March 2020 directive by executive order, though the Department of Health has not yet issued its own new directive or guidance for nursing homes to follow it, we presume state officials will comply with it.

Gov. Cuomo admits he was wrong to order nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients

If you've followed the links above, the New York Post has largely owned the story on the Cuomo administration's coronavirus nursing home scandal. In this editorial, they recap the coverage that forced Governor Cuomo to end his deadly policy. They've left one question unasked as yet: What compelled Governor Cuomo and his administration to completely contradict their previous statements and adopt it knowing the likely consequences of it in the first place? Our working hypothesis for answering that question is presented above.

9 May 2020: Damning Death Toll in NY Nursing Homes

NY’s Cuomo criticized over highest nursing home death toll

This PBS News Hour article provides some damning figures, which to put into perspective, we'll note that Johns Hopkins is reporting a total 77,180 deaths for the entire United States through 8 May 2020, with 26,243 of them in the state of New York. Here's an excerpt:

Of the nation’s more than 25,000 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, more than a fifth of them — about 5,300 — are in New York, according to a count by The Associated Press, and the toll has been increasing by an average of 20 to 25 deaths a day for the past few weeks.

“The numbers, the deaths keep ticking up,” said MaryDel Wypych, an advocate for older adults in the Rochester area. “It’s just very frustrating.”

Across the U.S., the 25,000+ deaths attributed to COVID-19 that have occurred in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities represent at least 32% of the nation's total death count, with deaths in the state of New York's nursing homes resulting from Governor Cuomo's policies alone contributing nearly 7% of the national total.

These figures are almost certainly underestimates, where we suspect they do not fully reflect deaths that occurred among New York's nursing home patients who became infected thanks to the Cuomo administration's policies, who were subsequently transferred to hospitals where they passed away. One nurse describes Governor Cuomo's policies as "irresponsible, negligent, and stupid".

Meanwhile, at least 38% of all 9,116 lab-confirmed COVID-19 deaths in New Jersey occurred in that state's nursing homes and long term care facilities. Having followed the Cuomo administration's lead in forcing the state's nursing homes to admit infected patients beginning on 31 March 2020, the state has seen 97% of its coronavirus-confirmed deaths in the period since. Following Governor Cuomo's lead in exposing high-mortality risk patients to the coronavirus is proving especially deadly.

7 May 2020: Cuomo Administration to Investigate Itself

Cuomo's Nursing Home Investigation May Present "Conflict Of Interest"

This article discusses the inherent conflict of interest that exists in how Governor Cuomo's investigation of nursing homes has been set up.

The investigation will be a joint affair between the state attorney general, a member of Governor Cuomo's political party, and the state's Department of Health, which oversees and regulates the state's nursing homes, and which is being exempted from being a target the investigation despite its role in forcing nursing homes to admit contagious coronavirus patients and in allowing infected nursing home staff to remain on the job contributed to the large and growing death toll at the state's nursing home facilities.

6 May 2020: Peak Cuomo Arrives

On 6 May 2020, Governor Cuomo was at or near the peak of his popularity. That was in no small part due to the efforts of his brother, CNN's Chris Cuomo, who turned his hour long evening news broadcast into cheerleading propaganda outlet for the Governor. On 6 May 2020, Peak Cuomo arrived. It's been downhill for both Cuomos ever since.

To understand why 6 May 2020 marked the top for the Cuomos, you have to see the following excerpt from CNN's Cuomo Prime Time broadcast that evening:

We can't recall any other media outlet purporting to present objective news coverage shredding its reputation the way CNN did by featuring 1. Clear conflicts of interest, 2. Outright propaganda, 3. Whatever else it is you call this clip. And this nonsense went on for months, begging the question of whether CNN employs any serious journalists, editors, managers, or executives.

6 May 2020: Evidence Appears NY Is Undercounting COVID Nursing Home Deaths

SEE IT: At least 20 bodies removed from Harlem nursing home during coronavirus pandemic, though state data only shows five COVID-19 deaths

This article (and video) suggests the death toll in New York's nursing homes is being greatly understated by state officials. It also points out that many deaths being reported in hospitals may be traced to infections that occurred in the state's nursing homes, which understates the extent to which nursing home patients are contributing to the state's coronavirus death toll.

5 May 2020: Nursing Homes Go Without PPE as COVID Death Toll Share Rises

Another 1,700 Virus Deaths Reported in NY Nursing Homes

According to this article, 4,813 nursing home residents have died from COVID-19 in New York overall since 1 March 2020, or about a quarter of the 19,415 deaths in the state at this point.

Coronavirus Toll: ‘Absolutely Horrifying’ Surge Of 98 Dead At NYC Nursing Home

This article puts paid to Governor Cuomo's claim (see entry for 26 April 2020) that state officials only put coronavirus-infected patients into nursing homes filled with high-mortality risk elderly patients if they had sufficient resources to care for them and could protect patients from exposure to the coronavirus. Here's an excerpt:

“Isabella, like all other nursing homes in New York City, initially had limited access to widespread and consistent in-house testing to quickly diagnose our residents and staff,” Audrey Waters, a spokeswoman for the nursing home, wrote in an email. “This hampered our ability to identify those who were infected and asymptomatic, despite our efforts to swiftly separate anyone who presented symptoms.”

Isabella also encountered staffing shortages, prompting it to hire from outside agencies and early challenges securing personal protective equipment for employees. Waters said the home finally is “getting more access to testing” now.

Apparently, nursing homes needed more than a week's supply of masks and gloves that state officials would seem to have believed was all that was necessary to care for the COVID-19 patients the state mandated they admit into their facilities.

4 May 2020: Pataki Calls for Independent Investigation

Pataki slams Cuomo, calls for investigation into nursing home deaths amid coronavirus

The former governor is calling for an independent investigation of the scandal, the Cuomo administration is resisting.

3 May 2020: Cuomo Gifts Immunity to Nursing Home Operators

Faced with 20,000 dead, care homes seek shield from lawsuits

This article looks at the lobbying effort nursing homes have launched to protect themselves from lawsuits related to the coronavirus deaths they have incurred, which total nearly a third of all deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S. The portions of the article that address New York are telling:

At least 15 states have enacted laws or governors’ orders that explicitly or apparently provide nursing homes and long-term care facilities some protection from lawsuits arising from the crisis. And in the case of New York, which leads the nation in deaths in such facilities, a lobbying group wrote the first draft of a measure that apparently makes it the only state with specific protection from both civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution.

Why is New York so different in protecting nursing homes from criminal prosecution? The article goes on to describe Governor Cuomo's relationship with the nursing home industry after describing the efforts of the industry to gain immunity protections in recent years, which looks like the industry's lobbyists have been actively engaged in providing funds to support the governor's political priorities:

Nowhere have the industry’s efforts played out more starkly than in New York, which has a fifth of the nation’s known nursing home and long-term care deaths and has had at least seven facilities with outbreaks of 40 deaths or more, including one home in Manhattan that reported 98.

New York's immunity law signed by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo was drafted by the Greater New York Hospital Association, an influential lobbying group for both hospitals and nursing homes that donated more than $1 million to the state Democratic Party in 2018 and has pumped more than $7 million into lobbying over the past three years.

New York's immunity law, the Emergency Disaster Treatment Protection Act (EDTPA), was enacted on 20 April 2020, just as New York's coronavirus nursing home scandal began blowing up in the news. Since New York is uniquely alone in the nation at this point in shielding nursing home operators from prosecution for coronavirus-related deaths resulting from criminal negligence, it looks like the industry lobbyists have successfully used the additional leverage that the Cuomo administration's scandalous actions have provided them to get something they haven't been able to get elsewhere.

Since New York wasn't the only state that allowed the practice, it will be interesting to see what happens on this count in the others, such as New Jersey and California.

1 May 2020: Not Just New York

States ordered nursing homes to take COVID-19 residents. Thousands died. Here’s what happened

New York wasn't the only state that forced nursing homes to admit known coronavirus-infected patients without ensuring they were equipped to handle them. This article counts up the associated deaths and describes a large number of actions now being taken that should have been implemented from the beginning.

29 April 2020: COVID-Infected Staff Allowed to Work at NY Nursing Homes

Requiring NY Nursing Homes to Accept COVID Patients Caused Deaths

In addition to revealing a potential motive for why Governor Cuomo's administration put nursing home patients at risk with its reckless policy (fearing a surge in COVID-19 patients that could overwhelm hospitals predicted by the IHME model, which is proving to be far from accurate, the Cuomo administration effected a 'triage' policy, with nursing homes the designated losers), this article also reveals the state had fined several of the nursing homes at which it place infected coronavirus patients for unsanitary conditions as recently as earlier this year.

In other words, New York's state regulators already knew these facilities would place nursing home patients at extremely high risk because they had already faulted them for conditions that would be conducive to spreading a viral infection. Then New York state officials required these facilities to accept patients infected with the coronavirus. Then the same New York state officials refused to transfer patients the nursing homes, lacking the resources and environment needed to provide proper care, requested be moved to facilities that could.

New York let coronavirus-infected nurses work in upstate nursing home

This may be the second most disturbing news story to come out from New York. Here's the introduction:

The state Health Department allowed nurses and other staff who tested positive for the coronavirus to continue treating COVID-19 patients at an upstate nursing home, The Post has learned.

State officials signed off on the move during an April 10 conference call that excluded local officials from Steuben County, who protested the move, according to a document provided by the county government’s top administrator, Jack Wheeler.

At least 15 people have died at the Hornell Gardens nursing home in the tiny town of Hornell since the outbreak, according to county tallies. State records show just seven deaths across the county and include no data about this home.

Allowing staff known to have tested positive for carrying the deadly coronavirus and at high risk of being contagious continue working to provide care to nursing home patients is the equivalent of knowingly allowing a serial killer the freedom to move from victim to victim. This isn't just a reckless policy, it may qualify as either manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide on the part of those who gave the green light to make this happen.

State Ends Policy Allowing COVID-Positive Nursing Home Staffers to Work

It didn't take long for New York's public health officials to rescind their policy of allowing health care by coronavirus-infected nursing home staff after it was exposed. Meanwhile, the state's policy of requiring nursing homes to admit coronavirus-infected patients remains in force.

28 April 2020: Cuomo Claims He Didn't Know About Deadly Directive

Cuomo Claims He Didn’t Know About New York Rule Forcing Nursing Homes To Accept Elderly With COVID-19

Here's an excerpt from the article, after Governor Cuomo was asked about his administration's 25 March 2020 directive:

At a briefing on Monday, when Cuomo was asked about admitting coronavirus patients to nursing homes he claimed he was unaware of New York’s rule.

“It’s a good question. I don’t know,” Cuomo said.

There's not much other new information on Governor Cuomo's COVID-19 nursing home scandal in this article, but it indicates that both California and New Jersey implemented similar rules as New York's to force nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients. Separately, over 3,000 coronavirus infection-related deaths have occurred at nursing homes in New York.

27 April 2020: Cuomo Begins Casting Blame on Others

Cuomo blames his refusal to help coronavirus-hit nursing home on Navy protocol

Why didn't Governor Cuomo send uninfected nursing home patients to the U.S.S. Comfort, the naval hospital ship sent by the U.S. Navy to take the load off New York City's nursing homes? This article shows an early attempt to deflect personal culpability and blame the Navy's policies along with the management of the non-profit nursing home that was overloaded with coronavirus patients because of his administration's policies.

Governor Cuomo also "ducked" a question about why New York hadn't set up dedicated nursing homes to take in COVID patients discharged from hospitals. It wouldn't be until November 2020 before New York would set any such facilities up, months after they would have done the most good. Strangely, they kept it quiet even after they had.

26 April 2020: Governor Cuomo Doubles Down

Cuomo doubles down on ordering nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients

this article reveals how Governor Cuomo refuses to allow challenges to the state government's authority in requiring nursing homes to admit coronavirus-infected patients.

The governor — who himself has described nursing homes as a “feeding frenzy’’ for the deadly coronavirus — said that the facilities can’t challenge a state regulation forcing them to admit patients with the contagion.

But he insisted that nursing homes could transfer those ill with the virus to another facility if the centers lacked such things as quarantine space, proper protective equipment and staff.

Asked by a reporter at his daily briefing Sunday if there was anything contradictory about his statements, the governor replied, “No.”

How did that work in practice?

The CEO of a hard-hit Brooklyn nursing home, where 55 patients have died from the coronavirus, told The Post last week that he’d been warning state Health Department officials for weeks he had staffing and equipment issues — yet received little help.

“There is no way for us to prevent the spread under these conditions,’’ the head of the Cobble Hill Health Center, Donny Tuchman, wrote in an e-mail to the department on April 8.

He said he asked to move some patients to the makeshift wards at Manhattan’s Javits Center and aboard the city-docked USNS Comfort amid the pandemic, only to be told those two spots were receiving only patients from hospitals.

“I made specific requests to transfer patients, and it didn’t happen,’’ Tuchman told The Post. “There weren’t options.”

The article also reports that state health officials "conducted a focus study" of the facility and determined it had sufficient resources in their view to justify rejecting the nursing home's CEO's requests to transfer patients, finding they had plenty of masks and gloves. The article doesn't indicate what they thought of the staffing or other issues cited by the facility in their requests.

There's enough information here to indicate New York's top health officials were effectively implementing a triage strategy with the primary objective of reducing what they anticipated would be the peak load of coronavirus patients on hospitals directly at the expense of privately-run nursing homes, as confirmed by the transfers of patients known to be carriers of the coronavirus from hospitals to nursing homes, along with body bags. That the facilities they designated to take on overflow patients from hospitals went almost completely unused confirms they badly misjudged what the peak load would be.

25 April 2020: Like Fire in Dry Grass

Coronavirus spreads in a New York nursing home forced to take recovering patients

This article directly links coronavirus deaths in New York's nursing homes to the policy the state implemented a month earlier prohibiting the nursing homes from denying admission to contagious patients. The policy is described as "reckless and careless" by a health care worker.

24 April 2020: "Nobody's To Blame"

Cuomo: 'Nobody's to blame' for NY nursing home COVID-19 deaths

Phrased differently, Governor Cuomo denies personal responsibility for himself and his administration for any COVID-19 nursing home deaths. Also, what does this say about Governor Cuomo's 'investigation' when the governor has conveniently pre-determined its outcome?

23 April 2020: Disturbing News and Misplaced Priorities

Coronavirus patients admitted to Queens nursing home — with body bags

This is easily the most disturbing report to come out of New York with respect to Governor Cuomo's and his administration's coronavirus epidemic policies. Here's the introduction:

The first coronavirus patients admitted to a Queens nursing home under a controversial state mandate arrived along with some grim accessories — a supply of body bags, The Post has learned.

An executive at the facility — which was previously free of the deadly disease — said the bags were in the shipment of personal protective equipment received the same day the home was forced to begin treating two people discharged from hospitals with COVID-19.

“My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box so much heavier than the rest, he opened it,” the exec told The Post Thursday.

“The first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags.”

That's quite an indication what state officials expected would happen from the implementation of the Cuomo administration's policy. If that is indeed how the policy was implemented, it's no wonder Governor Cuomo is seeking to deflect attention away from it, which perhaps explains the next headline....

N.Y. Gov. Cuomo says state nursing homes will be investigated

But only privately-run nursing homes. Nursing homes run by the state of New York will not be investigated. Oddly enough, Governor Cuomo also did not initiate an investigation of his administration or its policies.

22 April 2020: No PPE for NY Nursing Homes

Gov. Cuomo says ‘it’s not our job’ to provide PPE to nursing homes

This article reveals Governor Cuomo's apparent contempt for elderly New Yorkers and confirms his administration saw no problem with diverting resources like protective personal equipment from the nursing home facilities the state regulates and which they knew were at very high risk to directly benefit state and local government employees. If you want to know what life would be like under a Medicare for All single-payer health care system, this should tell you everything you need to know about how the people who would run such a system would choose to allocate resources within it in making life-and-death decisions.

21 April 2020: The Death of Diana Mongiello

Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus nursing home policy proves tragic: Goodwin

Michael Goodwin's column explores how Governor Cuomo and his administration's policies of deliberate neglect cost the life of a great-grandmother, providing a human anecdote to go along with the cold, hard data of excessive deaths emerging from New York's nursing homes.

20 April 2020: Governor Cuomo Plays Dumb

Cuomo didn’t know coronavirus patients are being sent back to nursing homes

This is the first report where New York's media began actively challenging Governor Cuomo's and his administration on the actions they were taking during the epidemic in the state.

New York’s health commissioner on Monday defended a directive that requires nursing homes to readmit residents who’ve tested positive for the coronavirus — as Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed he didn’t know the policy was in place.

Cuomo was asked about the state’s policy on admitting or readmitting to nursing homes people who’d tested positive for COVID-19.

“That’s a good question, I don’t know,” the governor said.

Cuomo’s startling admission came days after the state revealed last week that at least 3,316 people in nursing homes and adult care facilities had died of coronavirus at their residences or in hospitals across the state.

Based on the timeline of events and news reporting, our view is that Governor Cuomo's claim is almost certainly false. We also think it is highly unlikely that New York's public health officials would implement such an obviously high risk policy that so contradicted their previous policy and statements made by the governor on their own without the governor's tacit, if not explicit, approval.

18 April 2020: NY DOH's Initiates Systematic Collection of COVID Death Data for Nursing Home Residents

Cuomo admin tracked nursing home deaths months before incomplete DOH report

This report clarifies the timing of when the Cuomo administration began systematically collecting data on the COVID-related deaths of nursing home residents.

A copy of the directive obtained by The Post is dated April 18, 2020 — about eleven weeks before a health department report that excluded the number of nursing home residents who died of coronavirus outside of their facilities.

18 April 2020 marks when New York's Department of Health began its daily collection of data on the COVID deaths among New York's nursing home residents, but the department also took action to collect the same data going back to 1 March 2020.

State Department of Health spokesman Gary Holmes told The Post in a Wednesday statement that the agency “has received HERDS information daily from more than 1,000 long term care facilities and more than 200 hospitals since the start of this pandemic.”

“In April 2020 we asked for additional information to provide a more specific clinical picture, and as part of that correspondence we asked all facilities to provide that same level of information retrospectively to March 1,” the spokesman said.

This entry was added to the historic timeline after this new information came to light on 8 April 2021.