Throughout the pandemic, we have been warning readers to look beyond the laudatory media coverage of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to see how abysmally he has actually been handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Last month, we learned that the mass death he inflicted on his state’s nursing homes was much worse than we thought. Now, we learn that this was no accident.
In a stunning admission, a top aide to Cuomo revealed that his administration intentionally covered up the true extent of the nursing home deaths because it was worried that the information would be used against it by federal prosecutors.
This from the man who was praised for months for his supposed transparency about the coronavirus — a man who even won an Emmy for his communication during the crisis. This is the man who wrote a book celebrating his imagined success in leading the fight against the coronavirus. And this is the man who recently told MSNBC, “What I’ve found all through this crisis is that people value the truth.”
The current scandal has its origins in the early days of the pandemic, when Cuomo gave a fatal order forcing nursing homes to readmit COVID-19 positive patients. The virus, unsurprisingly, spread like wildfire among staff and patients — who were an especially vulnerable population to severe and ultimately deadly cases of the coronavirus.
It became clear early on that this was a devastating mistake. It’s also a big reason why New York has suffered far more COVID-19 deaths than the more populous state of Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis wisely pursued a different approach to nursing homes. As big a mistake as Cuomo made, it might have been defensible had he at least been transparent and admitted it upfront.
Early on in the pandemic, public health officials were warning against the threat that hospitals would become overloaded and the medical system would collapse. If every COVID-19 patient had to be kept in the hospital for 10 to 14 days, that breaking point would have been reached much sooner. So Cuomo made the decision to force nursing homes to readmit patients who may not have fully recovered from COVID-19 but who no longer required hospital care.
Had he later been contrite, apologized to families for the grave error, and been transparent about what had happened, it would have been an explicable mistake. Instead, he decided to cover it up.
A recent investigation by the state attorney general found that the reported death toll from nursing homes was likely off by thousands. It now appears that there were over 13,000 COVID-19 nursing home deaths — and over 15,000 when assisted living and adult care facilities are added to the total.
In a video conference call with state Democratic leaders reported on by the New York Post, Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa tells them that the Cuomo administration was worried about being targeted by the Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump.
She said last August that Cuomo refused to fork over the accurate information to the state Legislature because Trump had turned the issue “into a giant political football.”
She recalled that Trump “starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes … He starts going after [New Jersey Gov. Phil] Murphy, starts going after [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom, starts going after [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer.” And Trump also called for a DOJ investigation.
“And basically, we froze,” DeRosa said.
She continued, “Because then we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation.”
What’s remarkable is that this revelation only came in a private call. DeRosa found it important to apologize to Democratic lawmakers but not to the families of the thousands of people who saw their loved ones die as a result of Cuomo’s policy and then were lied to about it.
What’s also noteworthy is that even now, they are trying to blame Trump’s tweets for these egregious actions. Unfortunately for Cuomo, Trump isn’t around anymore to use as a foil, so we’re only likely to learn more about his corrupt behavior.
