ALBANY, N.Y. — The Cuomo administration undercounted COVID deaths in nursing homes by at least 4,100 as the pandemic raged across the Empire State, according to an audit released by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on Tuesday.
The audit details how health officials undercounted deaths in nursing homes by more than 50% at certain points during the height of the pandemic, echoing similar findings reported by Attorney General Letitia James’ office last year.
Auditors also found that officials were ill-prepared for such a deadly outbreak in elder care facilities and that the Department of Health intentionally obfuscated information about fatalities as former Gov. Andrew Cuomo sought to control what was made public.
“The public was misled by those at the highest level of state government through distortion and suppression of the facts when New Yorkers deserved the truth,” DiNapoli said in a statement.
The comptroller’s office also faced resistance from Department of Health officials who refused to provide auditors with a breakdown of the nursing home residents who died from COVID, meaning the true toll the deadly virus took on nursing home residents remains unknown.
New York significantly trailed other states in surveying nursing homes and developing strategies to stop infections from spreading in facilities, DiNapoli said.
The audit found that Cuomo officials “routinely reported incorrect data, inflating the perception of New York’s performance against other states.”
Throughout much of the pandemic, the Cuomo administration only counted residents who died in elder care facilities, not those who died in hospitals, when releasing information about nursing homes.
James’ office first accused the Cuomo administration of drastically undercounting nursing home deaths in a January 2021 report that questioned how officials were reporting data to the public.
That prompted then-Health Commissioner Howard Zucker to release revamped statistics including hospital deaths that nearly doubled the previously available death toll and brought it to more than 15,000 seniors.
James applauded DiNapoli’s team for digging into the issue.
“I am grateful to Comptroller DiNapoli for bringing much needed transparency to this critical issue,” she said in a statement. “My office will continue to monitor nursing home conditions and ensure the safety of our most vulnerable residents.”
The Health Department pushed back on the findings of DiNapoli’s report and in a formal response argued that any discrepancies were the fault of Cuomo officials.
“[T]he scope of health data that was released to the public by the prior administration was determined by that executive chamber, not department personnel,” the agency responded.
Cuomo resigned last August following a bombshell report from James’ office that detailed multiple allegations of sexual harassment made by young staffers and even a state trooper on the disgraced Democrat’s security detail.
A separate impeachment inquiry conducted by the Assembly corroborated many of the accusations against Cuomo, who has been attempting a comeback of sorts in recent weeks, and found his administration openly manipulated nursing home death data.
DiNapoli’s report comes as Cuomo attempts to rehabilitate his image with TV ads and appearances at churches in both Brooklyn and the Bronx.
Cuomo claims he has been vindicated and cleared with regards to the sexual misconduct claims after district attorneys across the state declined to bring criminal charges against him. He and his legal team have argued that James was part of a political conspiracy that plotted to bring him down.
Still, it may be his administration’s handling of the pandemic that may come back to haunt the former governor awarded an Emmy for his near-daily televised COVID briefings.
In January, the Manhattan district attorney’s office decided not to file criminal charges in connection with the handling of coronavirus deaths in nursing homes Cuomo’s tenure. However, federal prosecutors have also been probing the issue.
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