Governor Andrew Cuomo’s secretary, Melissa DeRosa, admitted the Cuomo administration withheld the state’s nursing home death toll out of fear that the numbers would “be used against us” by the Department of Justice in an investigation, according to an audio recording obtained by the New York Post.
On Jan. 28, New York State Attorney General Letitia James released the findings from her office’s ongoing investigations into nursing homes’ responses during the pandemic. Collected data from 62 facilities — 10 percent of New York’s total facilities — during specific time periods suggests that New York’s Department of Health (DOH) undercounted COVID-19 resident deaths associated with nursing homes by 56 percent.
Two New York Assembly members have already written to President Joe Biden, seeking his assistance to obtain data on nursing home deaths caused by COVID-19 in the state.
