New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s top advisers have successfully pushed state health officials to strip a public report of data showing that more nursing home residents had died of Covid-19 than the administration had acknowledged, according to people with knowledge of the production of the report.
The July report, which examined the factors leading to the spread of the virus in nursing homes, focused only on residents who died in long-term care facilities, excluding those who died in hospitals after becoming ill in nursing homes . As a result, the report said that 6,432 nursing home residents had died – a significant under-number of the death toll attributed to the state’s most vulnerable population, the people said. According to the first draft of the report, nearly 10,000 nursing home residents in New York had died by July last year, one said.
The changes Mr. Cuomo’s aides and health officials made to the nursing home report, not previously disclosed, reveal that the state had a fuller record of the deaths outside the facility in nursing homes as early as the summer. The health department opposed calls from state and federal lawmakers, media outlets and others to release the data for another eight months.
State officials now say more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have been confirmed or believed to have died from Covid-19 since March last year – counting both those who died in long-term care facilities and those who later died in hospitals . That figure is about 50% higher than the previous official death toll.
Mr Cuomo is now facing mounting political pressure on both the way his government is handling the pandemic in nursing homes and allegations that he sexually harassed two former staffers. Republicans and some Democrats have called on the governor to resign or be impeached.