Disgraced former Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo‘s Department of Health deliberately undercounted the number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths by more than 4,000, state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said in an audit released on Tuesday night.
Cuomo, who resigned over sexual harassment claims in August, is said to have known full-well about the undercount in May 2020, but continued to exclude the figures from his official totals of around 9,000 deaths until February 2021, when the mortality figure suddenly jumped above 13,000.
He faces a federal investigation into nursing home deaths, which is ongoing.
The former governor, since replaced by his former Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, came under fire for directing nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients at the start of the pandemic. That led to the virus to spread like wildfire in those facilities and leading to an estimated 15,000 deaths among vulnerable residents.
His alleged misleading behavior came as he was praised for his response to the initial COVID outbreak in New York City, and the publication of a controversial COVID memoir in late 2020, for which he was paid a $5 million advance.
Death counts which were inaccurate coupled with mismanagement led to a situation in which the true number of nursing home deaths is still not one hundred percent certain.
‘While the Department’s duty is to act solely to promote public health, we determined that, rather than providing accurate and reliable information during a public health emergency, the Department instead conformed its presentation to the Executive’s narrative, often presenting data in a manner that misled the public,’ the report states.
Disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo had long faced criticism over his administration’s handling of COVID-19, particularly in nursing homes
‘The pandemic was devastating and deadly for New Yorkers living in nursing homes. Families have a right to know if their loved one’s COVID-19 death was counted, but many still don’t have answers from the state Department of Health,’ DiNapoli said his report.
‘Our audit findings are extremely troubling. The public was misled by those at the highest level of state government through distortion and suppression of the facts when New Yorkers deserved the truth.
‘The pandemic is not over, and I am hopeful the current administration will make changes to improve accountability and protect lives. An important step would be for DOH to provide the families who lost loved ones with answers as to the actual number of nursing homes residents who died. These families are still grieving, and they deserve no less,’ DiNapoli said.
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, pictured, released the findings of an audit Tuesday night
The audit, which runs to some 58 pages found the Department of Health ‘used alternating methodologies to account for nursing home deaths’ during the pandemic and ‘consistently underreported the total number.’
For example, the audit states that between from May 3, 2020, to February 3, 2021, the Cuomo administration had internal data showing that 13,147 nursing home residents had died from COVID but they were only publicly reporting 9,076 resident deaths.
Among the key findings in the comptroller’s audit was the ‘understating’ of nursing home deaths by at least 4,100.
The reported death counts differed between those that occurred inside of nursing homes and those which occurred in hospitals.
Throughout much of the pandemic, the Cuomo administration only counted residents who died in elder care facilities, not those who died in hospitals, when releasing information about nursing homes. Pictured, a patient is loaded into an ambulance by emergency medical workers outside Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn
Throughout much of the pandemic, the Cuomo administration only counted residents who died in elder care facilities, not those who died in hospitals, when releasing information about nursing homes.
The comptroller suggested that at times during the crisis, the number was undercounted by more than 50 percent in order for Governor Cuomo to continue to push a narrative that would make it appear as though things in New York State were under control.
Officials at the Department of Health have been unable to explain the discrepancies in the figures, according to the audit which notes that the ‘executive repeatedly reported incorrect data, inflating the perception of New York’s performance against other states.’
Officials at the DOH even refused to submit auditors a breakdown of the nursing home residents who died from COVID.
Families who lost elderly loved ones to COVID-19 mock funeral for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s leadership and integrity outside virus-hit nursing home in October 2020
People who’ve lost loved ones due to Covid-19 while they were in New York nursing homes attend a protest and vigil on March 25, 2021 in New York City
It means that the exact numbers of lives lost in nursing homes due to the virus may never truly be known.
Auditors also concluded officials were not prepared for the deadly outbreak of coronavirus in such care facilities and then the Department of Health then deliberately muddled the information so as Governor Cuomo sought to control what was made public.
‘These are not routine actions by state agencies undergoing an Office of the State Comptroller audit and raise serious concerns about the control environment at DOH,’ the audit said.
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said that former Governor Cuomo had already addressed the scandal over nursing home death figures publicly while still in office.
‘As the number of out-of-facility deaths were reported last January, this is not news,’ Azzopardi said. ‘However what is peculiar is the comptroller’s release of this audit now – but no one has ever accused him of being above politics.’
State Attorney General Letitia James praised DiNapoli’s audit noting that it tallied with her own January 2021 report into nursing homes which revealed how the DOH had ‘misrepresented’ the number of nursing home deaths
State Attorney General Letitia James praised DiNapoli’s audit noting that it tallied with her own January 2021 report into nursing homes which revealed how the DOH had ‘misrepresented’ the number of nursing home deaths.
It led to then-Health Commissioner Howard Zucker to release rejigged statistics that included hospital deaths nearly doubling the previous death toll bringing it to more than 15,000 seniors.
‘This audit affirms many of the findings that we uncovered last year about the state’s response to COVID, most notably that DOH and the former governor undercounted the number of deaths in nursing homes by as much as 50 percent,’ James said in a statement.
‘I am grateful to Comptroller DiNapoli for bringing much needed transparency to this critical issue. My office will continue to monitor nursing home conditions and ensure the safety of our most vulnerable residents.’
Dr. Howard A. Zucker, was commissioner of the New York State Department of Health at the time. Both Governor Cuomo and Zucker are blamed for the under-counting of deaths
The Health Department also responded to DiNapoli’s findings arguing that any discrepancies were the fault of Cuomo officials.
‘The scope of health data that was released to the public by the prior administration was determined by that executive chamber, not department personnel,’ the agency stated.
In January, the Manhattan district attorney’s office decided it would not be filing criminal charges in connection with the nursing homes deaths under Cuomo, but federal prosecutors are still probing the issue.
Cuomo, 64, a Democrat, was forced to resign among the mire of of scandal after a report by the attorney general last August found Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women in direct violation of state and federal law.
Cuomo reluctantly announced his resignation soon afterwards.
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo is pictured during one of his daily press briefings that he gave during the height of the pandemic
