Cuomo Faces Set To Testify Over COVID-19 Nursing Home Controversy

Clear Facts

• Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is set to testify before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic regarding his 2020 decision to mandate nursing homes and adult care facilities to accept COVID-19 positive patients from hospitals.
• Cuomo’s administration has been previously reported to have knowingly undercounted COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes by altering its classification system.
• The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) was found to have undercounted nursing home coronavirus deaths by almost 50%, a fact attributed to the changes in the state’s classification of such deaths.

The former Democratic Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, is expected to appear before Congress to answer questions about his 2020 mandate that required nursing homes and adult care facilities to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19.
Cuomo issued this controversial order in March 2020, barring nursing homes from refusing admission to individuals solely on the grounds of a positive coronavirus diagnosis.

Reports surfaced in May 2020 that Cuomo’s administration had intentionally undercounted COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes.
This was done by changing the system of classification, and lawmakers in the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic will have the opportunity to question Cuomo about this on June 11.

Chair of the coronavirus subcommittee, Republican Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup, announced,
“Governor Cuomo will be appearing before our select Subcommittee on the Pandemic on June 11. This will be a transcribed interview at 10 a.m.”

Wenstrup expressed his curiosity about Cuomo’s motives, saying,
“I’m trying to learn why he would do something like this. As a doctor who has treated infections, it goes against all medical common sense to take someone who was highly contagious and put them amongst the most vulnerable.”

In March 2020, Cuomo issued an order stating that “no resident shall be denied readmission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”
However, amid mounting criticisms, he reversed this policy in May 2020.

Further controversy arose when the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) quietly adjusted its way of counting and classifying coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes in early May 2020.
Under the revised system, only those who died within a nursing home facility were counted as nursing home deaths, excluding those who died of the virus in hospitals, for example.

In 2021, Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James found that the NYSDOH had undercounted nursing home coronavirus deaths by almost 50% due to the changes in the classification of the deaths.
A 2022 audit by Democratic New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli revealed that the agency had undercounted by at least 4,100 deaths between April 2020 and February 2021.

The coronavirus subcommittee began efforts to contact Cuomo approximately nine months ago. Wenstrup asserted that he and his colleagues experienced multiple delays and were “ignored on many of our requests.”
It was only recently that Cuomo finally agreed on a date to testify to the coronavirus subcommittee.

However, Cuomo’s spokesperson, Rich Azzopardi, offered a contrasting version of events, stating,
“There’s no news here, we agreed to do this months ago. This is pure politics and the simple fact remains that this issue has been reviewed three times by the Department of Justice, as well as Congress and the Manhattan District Attorney who found no ‘there’ there. Any real review would focus on the 10 other states with similar policies, red and blue alike.”

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