Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll

[oldsoftie]

Source: NY Times

Top aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo were alarmed: A report written by state health officials had just landed, and it included a count of how many nursing home residents in New York had died in the pandemic.

The number — more than 9,000 by that point in June — was not public, and the governor’s most senior aides wanted to keep it that way. They rewrote the report to take it out, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The extraordinary intervention, which came just as Mr. Cuomo was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements, was the earliest act yet known in what critics have called a monthslong effort by the governor and his aides to obscure the full scope of nursing home deaths.

After the state attorney general revealed earlier this year that thousands of deaths of nursing home residents had been undercounted, Mr. Cuomo finally released the complete data, saying he had withheld it out of concern that the Trump administration might pursue a politically motivated inquiry into the state’s handling of the outbreak in nursing homes.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/nyregion/cuomo-nursing-home-deaths.html

[samnsara]

1. ..and here i have trumper acquaintances (cuz you can never really be friends)..who are

..screaming that the Covid # in the hospitals were INFLATED so more Gvnt $ would be sent.

[thesquanderer]

2. Yes. And they'll hear this report, villify Cuomo, and never even recognize that contradiction. (n/t)

[SpankMe]

3. This behavior is Republican kind of shit.

Screwing with actual numbers for political purposes (even if it was out of fear that Trump would exploit the numbers) is wrong and paints Dems as hypocrites.

We cannot be doing this.

[cstanleytech]

5. These days to be true Republicans shit he would have had to say the virus was fake.

[eTXwLA]

4. He has to go.

[Paladin]

6. Agreed.

Democrats need to stop defending Cuomo with the Al Franken situation. It's more and more obvious by the day that Cuomo did a lot more bad shit than Franken ever dreamed of.

I'm really intolerant of toxic, bullying bosses. It comes from having toiled for a couple of them, over the years.

[bullwinkle428]

11. Bingo. I have similar experiences with these types in my past as well,

so it's really demoralizing to see so many defending this behavior so vigorously here.

Franken was definitely given the "bum's rush" on some very sketchy evidence, but this is a completely different kettle of fish.

[StarryNite]

21. I agree.

We can't be the party of double standards. I am so disappointed in him.

[mitch96]

7. I'm curious if the TOTAL death count is the same, just the # of nursing home deaths moved to

hospitals. This, I believe would make it look like there were less deaths in NH's, right?
What would be the point of doing this?
m

[lagomorph777]

16. I think that's what Cuomo is claiming. If true, is it slightly less bad?

I dunno. But I think this story is worse than the harassment claims. I don't endorse that sort of behavior, but from the descriptions, it doesn't rise to the level of forcing resignation. The nursing home scandal just might.

[Nixie]

8. If this was because of the Trump administration, then

who could forget where they were coming from. There’s no telling what Trump would have done to New York just to parade Cuomo around. Look what the Trump jackass said about the Democratic states and governors.

[durablend]

9. "Hey stop attacking Cuomo"

"something something Republican ratfuck...need to stop eating our own...RAH RAH TEAM BLUE!!!!"

[oldsoftie]

10. +1000

All the news except what we dont like!

[Joinfortmill]

12. Can't defend this. He's toast.

[LymphocyteLover]

14. Meh. It's nothing close to what Trump and the GOP did

and where is Republican outrage over that?

[LymphocyteLover]

13. I dunno. I still don't see the big scandal.

The article is swamped in a lot of inflammatory language and allegations of scandal, but the main charge against Cuomo about his handling of the pandemic *still* seems to be that he had nursing home residents who died in the hospital counted as hospital deaths and not as nursing homes deaths. There was not suppression of overall deaths. I am not a fan of Cuomo in general, but I fail to see how this is a huge scandal.

[ancianita]

15. I will defend Cuomo's one mistake because of the thousand good things Cuomo did to save lives.

45 states’ majority of nursing homes are privately owned.
https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/nursing-facilities-by-ownership-type/
The CDC’s site unequivocally claims that 70% of US nursing homes are run by private corporations.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/nursing-home-care.htm

When New York, that has 51% privately owned nursing homes -- a figure that Albany and Cuomo's detractors don't care to take into account -- found Cuomo’s numbers were 50% off, where was the source of that error? Interesting coincidence?

I think not.

Private management reportings of their deaths in New York -- AS IN EVERY OTHER STATE, Florida at the top of that list, with state medical examiners and coroners' numbers ordered to be suppressed by its state health department -- were unwilling, early last year, to report to government, and most have yet to provide accurate numbers of nursing home deaths.

Does anyone here think the 43 other states’ governors should be held accountable, like Cuomo is, for what private corporate run nursing homes won’t report?

Because if Cuomo goes down for numbers not reported at the same time he was doing 1,000 life saving things in February and March to deal with the massive covid insurgency sent to NY from Europe, before any other governors, then the rest of Democratic governors should go down, too.

Be consistent when you spout any of that "we Democrats are not like them," when you know that corporate owned nursing homes across the country have failed to report, not just to America's governors, but to American families.

You who want Cuomo removed join scapegoating Republicans when you want to throw this one governor under the bus for keeping what has otherwise been the most transparent reporting system of all fifty states.

The truth will come out, and in a fair accounting, New Yorkers will keep him in office.

[lagomorph777]

17. Fair point. Would NY be better off with Ron DeSatan?

Clearly, no.

[ancianita]

18. 'Would NY even be better off without Cuomo' is the real issue, however. I think not.

NY would have stayed at the top of the infection, hospitalization and death counts. But now, it's at the bottom while other Democratic governors' states remain higher.

As long as we're going to eat our own, let's finish our plate, right?

[lagomorph777]

19. +1

[DENVERPOPS]

22. It always seemed to me

that the private/corporate nursing homes were doing the most coverups. they ignored he warnings, implemented nothing to control the spread within their facilities, and it spread like wildfire under the corporations management........
And I would love to see comparisons to other private/corporate nursing homes across the U.S. Florida/DeSantis would probably reveal a much more horrifying picture for sure. I certainly believe that you hit the nail on the head about 50% unreported and 50% corporate/privately owned.

Wouldn't it have been something to watch, if early on, Cuomo had closed all airports in NY from Europe and the planes had to divert to Florida............

Trump & RepubliCONs Coronavirus actions and inactions in 2020 will be written about for decades to come. As will all of Trump's destruction of all the preparations for such an event done by Obama.........

Then, the reasons will be exposed. Trump and his spawn, Politicians, Uber Rich Donors and friends, etc etc all using the stalling of action so that they all could position themselves better to make a massive un-regulated or reported profit from the virus. Then all of the confusion, esp the disappearance of PPE, Money for relief efforts, and money going to "contractors" of medical equipment........Most of which will never be known.........

This Cuomo hit job stinks to high heaven of the "rat fucking" that the Republican Party has been doing since Nixon's presidency....

This is, BY FAR, the most thoroughly corrupt political party in the history of our nation........

[Jetheels]

20. Has everyone forgotten that trump was advocating the injection of bleach, Clorox even placed a

warning on their website against injecting the bleach. States were pitted against another for buying ventilators, the dpa was not enacted till Biden, ppe was sold to China and who knows where else, trump lied about the dangers of covid as in “just like the flu”, lying that there even was covid, advocating not wearing masks, advocating keeping everything open, dispelling all scientific facts, .......if we’re going after Cuomo on how he handled aspects of the pandemic, I think trump needs to be gone after first, and no one is, his handling of it is not even news anymore! Also, look at the landscape trump created during the pandemic, he did everything possible to thwart every effort to contain the pandemic. Cuomo was the only leader in this entire country. NYC had the worst of anywhere since it is an international city with international airports. There was a tent hospital in Central Park, dead bodies filling up containers parked on sidewalks. How many lives did Cuomo save? Sure there were mistakes but cmon........look at the pile of shit heir orange diaper baby spread across the land on a daily basis. There should be lawsuits left and right against trump for his handling of the pandemic. But no, all you read about is evil Cuomo.

[LiberalLovinLug]

23. Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll

Why?

We all saw the high COVID cases in New York near the beginning of the pandemic. It was a new challenge. Why would a few more deaths from this pandemic make any difference, at least compared to the fall out if this cover up was found out? Especially since he could blame Trump for such a surge in cases by his incompetence at a federal level.
What was he thinking?

[DENVERPOPS]

24. LLL

you are forgetting the principals of the RepubliCON party

Be a Hypocrite

Be a Liar

Be saying everything is 180 degrees from reality or the truth......