With more than 6,600 senior citizens dead, New York has had more coronavirus-related deaths in its nursing homes than any other state in the country. But that number might actually be much higher, according to an investigation by the Associated Press.
Unlike every other state, the New York State Department of Health required its officials to disclose only the COVID-19 deaths of patients who died while physically inside of nursing homes. This means the COVID-19 deaths of nursing home patients in hospitals and family homes were not counted, even if those patients contracted the virus within a nursing home. As a result, nursing homes are alleging that New York’s official death count is far below what it should be.
So, how many senior citizens have died in New York? We don’t know for sure, but the number could be more than twice what the state is currently reporting, according to the Associated Press. More than 21,000 nursing home beds are empty in the state right now, which is 13,000 more than expected. That number could be partly the result of a slowdown in nursing home admissions, increased hospital visits, and loved ones pulling their relatives out of the homes. But it also suggests that there have been far more deaths in such facilities this year than there were last year.
This blatant disparity in the death count is particularly frustrating since New York was originally counting all COVID-19 deaths, regardless of whether they occurred inside or outside the nursing homes. But then the state quietly changed its policy, as the Daily Caller reported back in May. The question is: Why?
For those skeptical of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus, the answer seems obvious. This change served no medical purpose. If anything, it harmed the state’s ability to track the spread of the coronavirus within nursing homes and hospitals. But it did serve a tactical purpose. Omitting deaths made it seem like New York’s numbers were much better than they actually were, thus drawing attention away from Cuomo’s disastrous policy that caused so many nursing home deaths in the first place.
Even now, Cuomo’s administration is refusing to divulge the total death count of nursing home patients that died inside and outside the facilities. He has also dismissed any attempt at accountability, including calls for an independent investigation into his March 25 policy requiring nursing homes to accept and care for coronavirus patients. Even his fellow state Democrats have urged him to step back and allow a bipartisan investigator to conduct a thorough review. But Cuomo has refused.
“There is no such thing as a person who is trusted by all Democrats and Republicans,” Cuomo said this week when asked why he wouldn’t cooperate with an independent investigation. “That person doesn’t exist. The Department of Health — those are just numbers. They report our numbers. You can see what you want in the numbers, but the numbers are the numbers. You can politically spin numbers, but those numbers are numbers.”
The problem is that Cuomo’s numbers were manipulated so as to deceive. Democrats and Republicans must continue to put pressure on his administration and hold him accountable for the decisions he made — specifically, one of the worst decisions any leader in the nation made after the coronavirus hit.
The people of New York deserve answers, and it’s time for Cuomo to give them.
