Editorial: Curing Cuomo's obstinacy: Under pressure, state officials finally release a nursing home death tally; big questions remain
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After months of stonewalling, state health officials finally released a tally of how many of New York’s nursing home residents have died during the pandemic: a staggering 12,743 confirmed and presumed deaths, including a previously unacknowledged 3,829 residents who died after being transferred to hospitals, the death count roughly equaling 13% of the nursing home population.
There goes a deeply disingenuous talking point Gov. Andrew Cuomo repeated ad nauseam to defend his record, based on information he knew to be misleading: that New York is 46th out of 50 states in nursing home deaths as a percentage of all COVID fatalities.
The enlightening new tally, surprise surprise, came only after the release of very similar estimates in a scathing report published Thursday by Attorney General Tish James on nursing homes’ pandemic response, which rightly attacked Cuomo’s administration for misleading accounting while reserving the bulk of its ire for many of the state’s nursing home operators.
Based on what data she had, James asserts that among the state’s 619 nursing homes and adult care facilities, patients were far likelier to die where staffing levels were lowest — which is to say, many homes run by for-profit operators. It’s a tempting narrative that may bear out, but trouble is, factoring in the now-known deaths of residents later transferred to hospitals might change that conclusion substantially. Oops.
And James’s report punts on a question many have for months sought to answer: whether state guidance in late March ordering nursing homes to accept patients regardless of whether they tested positive for COVID led to more deaths.
What is clear is that many more people have succumbed to the virus in the intervening months. Since the state’s guidance was rescinded on May 10, at least 3,400 more nursing home residents have died. That’s with ample PPE and tests. There’s no excuse.
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