A New York Supreme Court justice is ordering the state to turn over its data on coronavirus-caused deaths in nursing homes.
Justice Kimberly A. O’Connor released her decision on Wednesday, concluding that the state violated the law by not providing a reasonable date for when it could turn over the information to Empire Center for Public Policy, the group that requested it. New York will now have to turn over the data within five business days.
The conservative think tank filed a request for the information in August, but when the state delayed the request, they filed a lawsuit in September.
“DOH has had ample time to respond to Empire Center’s FOIL request,” O’Connor said. “Its continued failure to provide petitioner a response, given the straightforward nature of the request, how the data is collected and maintained, and the fact that some of the requested data has already been made publicly available without personally identifying information, goes against FOIL’s broad standard of open and transparent government and is a violation of the statute.”
“With the preliminary audit complete, we were already in the process of responding to their FOIL request and updating DOH’s website with publicly available information,” said Gary Holmes, a health department spokesman.
Last week, New York State Attorney General Letitia James released a report saying that nursing home coronavirus deaths had been undercounted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration by as much as 50%.
On Mar. 25, the New York Health Department released a directive ordering nursing homes to accept and readmit patients that had tested positive for COVID-19, a move for which Cuomo received intense criticism. In July, the Health Department released a report asserting that most of the patients sent back “were no longer contagious when admitted and therefore were not a source of infection.”
On Monday, the New York Times reported at least nine senior New York state health officials have resigned from their positions, including the medical director in the division of epidemiology. Cuomo himself, who in the early stages of the pandemic was hailed as a dynamic leader, has been under increasing pressure this year for his policies and decision making as the vaccine rolls out in the Empire State.
