Andrew Cuomo hit back at claims his aides engaged in a lengthy battle to suppress the true COVID-19 nursing home death toll from being made public.
Cuomo was responding to a New York Times article that alleges Cuomo aides repeatedly overruled and prevented state health officials from releasing the number of nursing home deaths.
Speaking with reporters in Buffalo on Thursday, Cuomo claimed his administration had taken its time releasing the statistics because they weren’t sure they had accurate figures – not because they were trying to hide anything.
After the US Department of Justice began investigating, they were advised by lawyers to ‘be very careful’ about releasing information, Cuomo said, referring to the DOJ under Trump.
Cuomo said President Donald Trump’s administration had used the pandemic against Democratic governors like him for political purposes.
‘This was all politics and all a political football that then morphed into an investigation, which made all the lawyers very careful about what the information they put out was,’ Cuomo said.
Cuomo has come under intense scrutiny over his nursing home COVID-19 response after he barred nursing homes from rejecting recovering coronavirus patients being discharged from hospitals in March.
His handling of the nursing home deaths is under a federal probe and is being looked into by the State Assembly.
Speaking in Buffalo Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo denied he had downplayed COVID fatalities in rest homes and labeled the investigation into him ‘despicable’
The state now acknowledges that at least 15,000 long-term care residents died, compared to a figure of 8,700 it had publicized as of late January. In this file shot from April 2020, Emergency Medical Service workers unload a patient out of their ambulance at the Cobble Hill Health Center
‘The whole COVID situation was highly politized between the federal government and the state Governments,’ he said Thursday.
‘We didn’t want to release a number that was inaccurate, because that would fuel the politics.’
The governor said his administration did not know what numbers to report because different states counted nursing home deaths differently.
‘Who do you attribute that death to? Do you attribute it to a nursing home or do you attribute it to a hospital?’ he asked.
‘How about if you were in a nursing home and got sick and then were sent to a hospital and you died in the hospital? Who do you attribute that death to?’
In August, the DOJ under Trump announced it was requesting information from the Democratic governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan who had ‘issued COVID-19 orders that may have resulted in deaths of elderly nursing home residents’.
Cuomo said the decision to bring in the Department of Justice had dramatically raised the stakes, and meant they had to tread carefully as any inaccurate statements could be used later as evidence.
‘When you are under investigation by the Department of Justice every piece of paper you submit you’d better be 100% right that is accurate.
‘Yes it was political, and yes I think it was despicable and unethical that you use the Department of Justice to make a political investigation.’
The New York Times detailed Cuomo’s efforts over a period of months to suppress the number of nursing home deaths in New York state.
Trump spent months efforts included preventing the publication of a scientific paper that included the true tally of the deaths.
Among the health officials who were allegedly stopped from releasing the true numbers was State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker.
Some patients who contracted COVID but later died in hospital were not counted in the official death count being released by Cuomo’s administration.
The administration refused for months to release more complete data and the true death toll was only released this year after a report by the New York state attorney general found deaths had been undercounted by about half.
The state now acknowledges that at least 15,000 long-term care residents died, compared to a figure of 8,700 it had publicized as of late January that didn’t include residents who died after being transferred to hospitals.
It was happening at a time when Cuomo was writing his since-released book about his handling of his pandemic.
On Thursday, Cuomo lost another key ally as his vaccine czar Larry Schwartz resigned from the voluntary post.
‘When you are under investigation by the Department of Justice every piece of paper you submit you’d better be 100% right that is accurate, Cuomo said Thursday
Larry Schwartz, Cuomo’s vaccine czar, resigned on Thursday, in yet another blow to the Governor
Alisha Narvaez Manager at International Funeral & Cremation Services transports a body to the funeral home on April 24, 2020 in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City
In a Q&A with the press on Monday, his first since November, Andrew Cuomo addressed sexual harassment allegations against him for the first time.
He flatly denied allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct.
Cuomo said he ‘didn’t do anything wrong,’ and is therefore not worried about the results of the State Attorney General’s investigation into the misconduct claims.
‘The report can’t say anything different,’ he said.
Sexual harassment allegations first came to light in December, when current and former state employees, as well as several other women, claimed the governor made unwanted sexual comments and advances, giving them unwanted kisses or touching them inappropriately.
One female aide said Cuomo groped her breasts after summoning her to his official residence last year.
He has consistently denied these claims, saying on Monday he did not do any of the things he has been accused of.
