The government’s top advisors, Andrew Cuomo, successfully pushed state health officials to avoid public reports of the number of nursing home residents who died in hospitals from COVID-19, it was revealed on Thursday night.
Instead, the July State Health Department report lists only nursing home residents who died of the virus in their facilities, far below the total deaths of the state’s most vulnerable population, sources Told the Wall Street Journal.
The revelation further confirms that the Cuomo administration had a more complete account of the COVID-nursing death count during the summer, but after repeatedly stoning lawmakers and the media, losing the case and filing the case Had to wait eight more months to wait for eight months. Damage to the state’s Attorney General report.
Last month, The Post specifically reported that one of Cuomo’s top aides, Melissa Derasa, said in a video conference call to Democratic leaders that “we are afraid” that the exact number “used against us” by federal prosecutors Will go “.
The July report, which largely defended the administration’s policy of requiring nursing homes to be discharged from hospitals since a controversial and defended nursing home, said that 6,432 nursing home residents died of virus. happened.
In truth, however, more than 15,000 nursing home residents have died of the disease in their facilities and hospitals in the state.
A senior Cuomo advisor and a state health department spokesman acknowledged in Thursday night’s statements that the July report outlawed out-of-facility death.
Gary Holmes, a Health Department spokesman, said in a statement, “While early versions of the report included deaths from the facility, the COVID task force was not satisfied that the data had been verified against hospital data and Therefore the final report was used only data on deaths from the facility, which was disclosed in the report. “
In a statement, Beth Gerev told special counsel Cuomo, “Out-of-the-facility data was omitted after its confirmation was not adequately verified by the DOH.”
A source told the Journal that state health commissioner Howard Zucker agreed to omit the data from the report.
The newspaper previously reported that the top Cuomo assistants who pushed for the change included Derasa and Zucker.
State Attorney General Letitia James cited the revised COVID-19 nursing home cause of death after issuing a daring report stating that nursing home COVID-19 deaths in the state could be more than 50 percent.
The discrepancy, the report said, was not disclosing the state’s outcome of how many nursing home residents died in hospitals.
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