ALBANY, NY (AP) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has written a book on COVID-19 crisis management. He now faces intense allegations that he covered the true death toll from the pandemic in nursing home residents, attacks that challenge his reputation for direct competition and could cloud his political future.
State lawmakers called for investigations, removing Cuomo from his emergency powers and even his resignation after new details surfaced this week about why certain data on nursing homes remained for months, despite the requests from legislators and others.
Top aide Melissa DeRosa told lawmakers the data was delayed because officials were concerned that the information would be “used against us” by the Trump administration’s Justice Department.
Cuomo’s new rescues from Republicans and fellow Democrats mark a sharp shift from the early days of the pandemic, when Cuomo’s daily briefings helped consolidate a national reputation for leadership. The briefings, in which he promised to deliver “only the facts,” earned him an International Emmy and helped lead to his book, “American Crisis.”
“It simply came to our notice then. It would be bad enough that this would have come out and that he would not have been publicly celebrating his treatment of the pandemic, “said Jeanne Zaino, a political science professor at Iona College.” But that aside, it’s no worse than that. “You’re talking about the deaths of 15,000 people.”
For months, the Cuomo administration dramatically reported the state’s number of deaths from COVID-19 among long-term care residents. They are now nearly 15,000, compared to the 8,500 previously reported.
The new toll amounts to about one-seventh of the approximately 90,000 people living in nursing homes as of 2019 in New York, which has one of the most assisted living facilities in the country.
Cuomo noted that a small but growing group of research suggests that uncontrolled community outreach is the most important factor in nursing home outbreaks and said the federal government’s inadequate aid with travel restrictions, testing and protective equipment has left New York City and its suburbs especially vulnerable.
He dismissed the criticisms as policies and noted that the deaths of thousands of hospital residents were always accounted for in the state’s overall account.
“He died in a hospital, he died in a nursing home, they died,” he said Jan. 29.
The commotion may not have the same impact on the third Democratic term as if he faced re-election for the first time this year, Zaino said. But it could make him less likely to be invested for a position in the Biden administration.
And Cuomo, who says he will run again in 2022, is now facing increasingly important criticism from members of his own party.
“The insecurity of transparency and the governor’s protection over the actions of the elderly residence of his administration is unacceptable,” said state Sen. John Mannion, one of the state’s 14 Democratic senators. say Friday that Cuomo’s expanded emergency powers should be repealed as soon as possible.
The highest death toll was only released hours after a report late last month by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James examined the administration’s inability to include residents of households. grandparents who died in hospitals. The updated numbers backed up the findings from an Associated Press investigation last year that concluded the state may have been underestimating the deaths of thousands of people.
Advocates and relatives of nursing home residents have questioned whether the spread of the virus in nursing homes was fueled by a March 25 state directive banning facilities from denying people only because they had COVID-19. The directive aimed to free up space in rapidly filling hospitals.
Debra Diehl, 62, who lost her father, Reeves Hupman, 85, for alleged COVID-19 in May at a nursing home outside Albany, wants to know why Cuomo and the state they did no more to separate the residents I had the virus from, perhaps putting them in field hospitals.
“They had people coming from hospitals in the lower part of the state here,” Diehl said. “It just looked like Typhoid Marys, I just spread it out. He didn’t know what he was doing or he didn’t care. “
In response to a request for freedom of information from the PA in May, the State Department of Health released records this week proving that more than 9,000 patients with coronavirus in recovery in New York were released from hospitals in nursing homes from March 25 to May 10, when Cuomo overturned the directive.
The state issued a report insisting that patients did not drive the virus transmission to residences, but did not rule out whether the board played any role..
Cuomo said the facility had a responsibility to accept only patients who could care. State health inspectors have uncovered violations of infection control in dozens of nursing homes in the midst of the pandemic and have imposed at least $ 1 million in fines.
Still, DeRosa has estimated that New York City nursing home residents account for 40% of the lives lost this winter. New York has reported more than 10,000 deaths since Dec. 1.
The disclosure of DeRosa’s comments this week at a conference call with Democratic lawmakers led to essentially months of complaints.
He said the state “froze” in responding to August lawmakers ’request about the number of residential residents who died in hospitals because officials were also responding to a Justice Department investigation and went worry that “what we’re starting to say will be used against us, and we weren’t sure if there would be an investigation.”
DeRosa issued a statement Friday saying the state was slow to respond to lawmakers because it was dealing with the Justice Department and then with the resurgence of the virus in the fall and vaccinations. The governor’s office declined to comment further.
“It gave the impression that they were trying to launder the information,” said Sen. Rachel May, one of 14 Democrats calling for the termination of Cuomo’s emergency powers.
Republican Senate leader Rob Ortt said Cuomo “must demand the immediate resignation of anyone involved in this cover-up and, if aware of it, must be removed from office.”
Criticism could resonate because they fit with a common complaint that, in all its capacity, Cuomo’s controlling nature can undermine its effectiveness.
Cuomo has rejected this idea, writing in his book, “You show me a person you don’t control and I’ll show you a person who probably won’t be very successful.”
For political scientist Christina Greer of Fordham University, recent disclosures “question: can we rely on the news coming out of the governor’s office? Not only out of residences, but can we trust schools, prisons, other communities?
“He definitely has a bad shadow in the administration,” he said.
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Peltz reported from New York.