New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration was tracking coronavirus deaths in the state’s nursing homes even though it claimed repeatedly that the true totals could not be “verified.”
A Department of Health document obtained by Fox News proved the administration began recording the location of nursing home deaths attributed to COVID-19 as early as April 2020.
But it deliberately kept the numbers under wraps when state and federal legislators asked for the totals.
“A new field has been added under the CURRENT Resident Death Details section of the form,” said a portion of the form, which was reportedly updated on April 19 of last year. “The new field will collect the resident’s Place of Death and is required for all resident deaths you are reporting in that section.”
Cuomo signed a controversial executive order on March 25, 2020 mandating that nursing homes accept COVID-positive patients. As a result, thousands of vulnerable residents contracted the coronavirus and died from it.
Despite the reported tracking of nursing-home deaths, administration officials denied knowing how many nursing home residents died from COVID-19 as recently as last month.
“The out-of-facility data was omitted after DOH could not confirm it had been adequately verified,” claimed Beth Garvey, a special counsel and adviser to Cuomo.
‘[T]his did not change the conclusion of the report, which was and is that the March 25 order was ‘not a driver of nursing home infections or fatalities,'” she said.
Cuomo’s administration downplayed the true death toll for months, and even under-reported the official numbers to avoid a federal investigation, according to Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor.
“Basically, we froze,” she admitted to state lawmakers in February.
“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,” DeRosa continued. “That played a very large role into this.”
