Category: DOH

Task Force Concludes Cuomo’s Nursing Home Policy Did Lead To More Nursing Home Deaths

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

The NYSBA (New York State Bar Association) Task Force on Nursing Homes and Long-Term Care determined that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s executive order policy forcing nursing homes to take on patients that had tested positive for COVID-19 led to more deaths.

The report is a devastating indictment on the Democrat governor’s policies and their effects on the elderly in the Empire State during the early stages of the pandemic.

The task force, according to the New York Post, defined Cuomo’s directive as “unreasonable” in both its “absoluteness” and the length of time it was left in effect.

While they were unable to put a particular number on that effect, the NYSBA was able to determine “there are credible reviews that suggest that the directive, for the approximately six weeks that it was in effect, did lead to some number of additional deaths.”

RELATED: Report: Cuomo Being Investigated For Retaliating Against Sexual Harassment Accusers

Task Force: Cuomo Nursing Home Policy Led To More Deaths

Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order on March 25th which forced nursing homes to take on patients that had tested positive for coronavirus.

The order prohibited nursing homes from requiring incoming patients “to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.”

Cuomo’s directive remained in place for over six weeks while well over 15,000 senior citizens succumbed to the virus.

The New York Democrat and his top aides have also been accused of hiding the data on those nursing home deaths and stripping numbers from DOH (Department of Health) reports.

For months Cuomo touted a DOH report which contained an explicit quantifier that the order forcing the care facilities to take on COVID-positive patients was “not a driver of nursing home infections or fatalities.”

The NYSBA task force determined that was not accurate.

“The Department of Health issued a report in 2020 in which it argued unconvincingly that the admission of 6,326 COVID-positive residents during the period the Health directive was in effect had no impact,” the report states.

“That cannot be the case, and has now been shown not to be the case.”

RELATED: Fox News’ Janice Dean: My Family Didn’t Have To Die, Cuomo’s Policy Helped It Happen

Cuomo’s Order Cost Lives

The report that Governor Cuomo’s executive order for nursing homes did lead to more deaths is a small measure of vindication for Fox News meteorologist and author Janice Dean, who has argued for months that his policies led to the deaths of more seniors than in any other state.

She argued in an op-ed column for USA Today over the summer that very point.

Dean’s in-laws were the unfortunate victims of COVID-19, where nursing homes in New York played a significant part.

“At first we didn’t blame anyone for my in-laws’ deaths. This is a pandemic, after all,” she wrote. “Then we learned about a policy that put them in danger.”

Dean’s column featured a sub-heading arguing, “My family didn’t have to die.”

Governor Cuomo is under investigation and impeachment inquiry for a slew of scandals, not the least of which involves the nursing home executive order and subsequent effort to obstruct justice by hiding the numbers.

They include:

  • Numerous sexual misconduct allegations including a police report involving forcibly groping an aide.
  • Bullying and threatening fellow lawmakers and members of the media.
  • Under investigation for a $5.1 million book deal profiting off the pandemic by having aides write and edit portions using state resources.
  • Provided priority COVID-19 testing for his family and associates, also allegedly using state resources.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out admitting over 9,000 Covid patients into nursing homes for 46 days would increase the amount of deaths, but if a 242-page report from the NY State Bar association proves [Cuomo] lied and people died, so be it,” Dean tweeted.

The Fox News personality has suggested many people in the Cuomo administration belong in prison over the nursing home scandal.

“I really feel like he should go to jail,” Dean has said. “And all these people surrounding him that covered this up for so many months, they should go to jail.”

The NYSBA report relied in part on a study by the Empire Center for Public Policy that tied “several hundred and possibly more than 1,000” deaths of nursing home residents to Cuomo’s executive order.

There is now a straight-line correlation between his policies and the deaths of the elderly during the pandemic. The question is, will anybody in New York state do anything about it?

 

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Democrat Lawmakers Slam Cuomo, Accuse Him Of Lying As He Tries To Defend Administration’s Handling Of Nursing Home Scandal

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

Several Democrat lawmakers lashed out at Andrew Cuomo after the New York Governor attempted to defend himself in the middle of an explosive nursing home scandal.

During a press conference over the holiday weekend, Cuomo sought to clarify bombshell remarks made by Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor, in which she admitted in a conference call that the administration hid information on COVID nursing home deaths from federal investigators.

The New York Post first reported that DeRosa told leading Democrats that the administration feared the data could “be used against us” by the Justice Department.

After former President Trump directed “the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us,” the Cuomo aide said, “basically, we froze.”

“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,” DeRosa added.

RELATED: GOP Rep. Calls For Cuomo To Be Prosecuted For Withholding Alleged COVID Nursing Home Deaths

Democrats Call Out Cuomo as a Liar Over Nursing Home Defense

The New York Times reported that attorney general Letitia James, a Democrat, accused Cuomo and his administration, particularly officials at the State Health Department, of undercounting COVID deaths at nursing homes by as much as 50%.

State officials had originally given a figure of about 8,677.

WWNY News reports that the number was actually well over 15,000 seniors who died in nursing homes.

Governor Cuomo famously issued an executive order in March forcing nursing homes to take on patients that had tested positive for coronavirus.

In the midst of his defense, Governor Cuomo claimed that the DOJ and state legislature had both requested data and that he simply chose to prioritize the information finding-task to address the federal matter.

This statement ruffled some feathers: “We gave precedence to the DOJ. We told the assembly that, we told the Senate that and that’s what we did.”

But multiple Democrats said that isn’t true.

New York State Sen. Jessica Ramos replied to Cuomo’s claim by calling it “trash.”

“At no point did the Administration notify the legislature about a DOJ investigation,” she added in another tweet. “People died and Cuomo lied then he had the gall to write a book.”

Democrat New York state senator Alessandra Biaggi also suggests Cuomo was lying.

“No, [Governor Cuomo], you did not tell the *entire* Senate or Assembly that there was a DOJ investigation, as the reason why you didn’t share the nursing home numbers,” she tweeted.

“I found out about a DOJ investigation with the rest of NY’ers in the [New York Post] story Thursday night.”

And there were plenty more who called out the lie on social media.

RELATED: GOP Congressman Reed Announces Plan To File Criminal Complaint Against Cuomo Aide Over Nursing Home Deaths

Calls For Criminal Investigation Continue

Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, one of the few voices to continually hound Governor Cuomo over the nursing home scandal for months on end, said “people should go to jail” over the cover-up.

Dean’s in-laws were victims of COVID-19, where nursing homes in New York played a part.

She reiterated that call by describing Cuomo as a “criminal.”

She wasn’t the only one, as several lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle demanded subpoenas be submitted in getting to the bottom of the cover-up.

“I reiterate my call for [Cuomo] and his administration to be subpoenaed for all pertinent information,” Ramos tweeted. “We need answers and grieving families deserve justice. Enough with the spin.”

Cuomo has continually denied that his office withheld or misrepresented data relating to nursing home deaths.

“New York State DOH fully and publicly reported all COVID deaths in nursing homes and hospitals,” he said at the press conference, a direct contradiction of Democrat AG James’ findings.

It looks like even his own party isn’t buying into the spin any longer.

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