....SHC Howard Zucker revealed the establishment of the coronavirus-only nursing homes in a 16-page letter sent to the state Legislature Wednesday....Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his health department came under fierce criticism last spring — during the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak — when thousands of recovering coronavirus patients were released from hospitals and sent to nursing homes.
.............Some nursing home operators claimed a March 25 state Health Department directive pressured them to admit or readmit COVID-19....Nursing home operators complained they were told they could not transfer sick COVID-19 patients to the temporary state Javits Center hospital or the United States Navy’s Comfort hospital ship which then-President Trump dispatched to New York harbor to help treat sick patients during the pandemic....
..........Zucker said 13,297 nursing home residents have died from COVID-19. The number jumps to 15,049 when including fatalities from other long-term care facilities such as assisting living and adult daycare centers.
Zucker also said the state spent more than $12 billion to address the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes and hospitals, mostly aid provided by the federal government. Nearly $9.2 billion went to hospitals and $520 million to nursing homes.
The health commissioner released the information to the Legislature after a tense meeting with lawmakers, who had accused him and Cuomo of “stonewalling” them for months............"While we appreciate that our letter from August 2020 has finally been answered and, two weeks ago, nursing home data was released, it is unacceptable that it took so long,” said the statement from Senate Health Committee Chairman Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx).........
Meanwhile the Empire Center for Public Policy, which won a Freedom of Information Lawsuit lawsuit to force the Cuomo administration to release more details about COVID-19 nursing home deaths, said the belated information received Wednesday from the Health Department was insufficient. A judge ruled team Cuomo illegally withheld the data and ordered its release.
VERY LENGTHY ARTICLE AT https://nypost.com/2021/02/10/cuomo-sets-up-19-covid-only-nursing-homes/
2/12 UPDATE
CUOMO COVERUP: AIDE ADMITS THEY HID NURSING HOME DATA SO FEDS WOULDN'T FIND OUT
Governor Cuomo’s top aide privately apologized to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state’s nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 — telling them “we froze” out of fear the true numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors, The Post has learned. The stunning admission of a cover-up was made by Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa during a video conference call with state Democratic leaders in which she said the Cuomo administration had rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August because “right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] turns this into a giant political football,” according to an audio recording of the two-hour-plus meeting.....And basically, we froze,” she told the lawmakers on the call.
“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.”
After dropping the bombshell, DeRosa asked for “a little bit of appreciation of the context” and offered what appears to be the Cuomo administration’s first apology for its handling of nursing homes amid the pandemic. But instead of a mea culpa to the grieving family members of more than 13,000 dead seniors or the critics who say the Health Department spread COVID-19 in the care facilities with a March 25 state Health Department directive that nursing homes admit infected patients, DeRosa tried to make amends with the fellow Democrats for the political inconvenience it caused them. MORE AT https://nypost.com/2021/02/11/cuomo-aide-admits-they-hid-nursing-home-data-from-feds/
#2 - CALLS TO PROSECUTE CUOMO after his top aide admits they HID data on nursing home COVID deaths amid fear stats would be used against them in DOJ probe as it's revealed 9K hospital patients were sent to nursing facilities - 40% higher than released. MORE AT https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9252157/Andrew-Cuomos-aide-Melissa-DeRosa-admits-hid-data-COVID-deaths-nursing-homes.html?ito=push-notification&ci=76671&si=25406738
#3 -Cuomo heads to DC to meet with Biden as NY nursing-home scandal explodes; MORE AT https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomo-heads-to-dc-to-meet-with-biden-as-ny-nursing-home-scandal-explodes
No comments:
Post a Comment