Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, along with some of his top aides at the time, may have allegedly made false or misleading statements during the pandemic or in their testimony to Congress, including manipulating Covid nursing home data.
The investigation, helmed by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, concluded that Cuomo and some of his former top aides changed the data to make it look like fewer people had died from Covid in nursing homes than was actually the case, according to a draft of the report obtained by the Times-Union. The outlet received a copy of the House Select Subcommittee draft report on the matter – the final report and interview transcripts are expected to be released in the coming days.
The findings highlight broader issues of transparency and accountability in the overall handling of the pandemic, the report found.
James Malatras, who was appointed to the state’s coronavirus task force and served as former director of operations for Cuomo, testified among others before the subcommittee on May 20 that a controversial July 2020 report had largely been drafted by members of Cuomo’s office, with input from the state Department of Health.
This contradicts previous testimony from Cuomo and other top aides that the former governor had no part in editing the July 2020 report, which misrepresented the number of Covid-related deaths which occurred in a nursing facility only, leaving out residents that were transferred outside of the facility where they later died of Covid.
The July report had been attributed to the state Department of Health, and sought to absolve Cuomo’s administration of any blame for a directive issued on March 25, 2020, requiring nursing homes across the state to accept residents even if they were testing positive for Covid. This directive was rescinded six weeks later, but critics have said it contributed to the state’s high rate of nursing home fatalities during the pandemic.
Undercounting also may have occurred due to a data glitch that may have ignored fatalities in a nursing facility if they occurred after 5 p.m. and were entered later, Malatras said in his testimony.
The July 2020 report had a difference of 6,500 versus 10,000 reported deaths. Former Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa insisted at the time that the deaths of nursing home residents that had occurred after they were removed from those shouldn’t be counted; she was concerned about the accuracy of the data, the Times-Union reported.
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