New York’s top state legislators on Friday withheld heat on Gov. Andrew Cuomo for stoning lawmakers over the total number of nursing home residents killed by COVID-19.
In almost identical statements to their spokespersons, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and Assembly Speaker Carl Hetti pushed back against Cuomo’s suggestion that they were fine with their administration withholding the data.
“We understood that there was a delay, but there was no agreement, nor were we asked to agree. We wanted information and we continue to go for information, ”said Stewart-Cousins spokesman Mike Murphy.
“And unfortunately, we were confident that they would get the information we asked for.”
Mike Wheland, a spokesman for Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Hettie (D-The Bronx), also said, “We agreed not to do anything.”
“We stopped asking for this information and we were subject to the belief that we would get it, but unfortunately it never happened,” Whitland said.
Last week, The Post specifically revealed that Cuomo’s top aide, Secretary of State Governor Melissa Derasa, privately told Democratic lawmakers that her administration canceled her August request for the number due to a pending federal investigation Given.
At a press conference on Friday, Cuomo said, “I told the MLA leaders, ‘Yes, I think the state legislators are angry about not getting information, I got it. And we have a lot of work to do. And I want us to reduce it, and we have to make a budget, we have to get vaccinated. We have a lot of important things to do together, and that’s what we should be focusing on. “
Cuomo also claimed that “they had all the numbers” because “there are two basic numbers: how many people died in hospitals and how many died in nursing homes.”
Cuomo’s administration refused to reveal the number of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 in hospitals, until Attorney General Letitia James released a horror report last month, speculating that nursing would do so The death toll in the home will increase by more than 50 percent.
Within the hour, Health Commissioner Howard Zucker finally released figures showing nearly 13,000 total deaths, down from 9,000 a day earlier.
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