Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York has been lauded by many in the media for his handling of the COVID-19 crisis in his state. This perhaps best culminating in his winning of an International Emmy for “his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world.” However, this rise to the national spotlight has not been without its criticisms. Many of which stemmed from Governor Cuomo’s March 25th directive to allow COVID-19 positive nursing home residents back into nursing homes after they had been hospitalized. The state Health Department reports “that approximately 6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to facilities between March 25, 2020 and May 8, 2020” after which the March 25th directive was rescinded. The toll this potentially had on nursing home deaths had not been totally clear until recently, when the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, released a report detailing the drastic miss counting of nursing home deaths across the State of New York.
According to James’s report, which surveyed about 10 percent of nursing homes across the State of New York, “COVID-19 resident deaths associated with nursing homes in New York state appear to be undercounted by DOH by approximately 50 percent.” The report details that this was a result of the New York Health Department failing to count nursing home residents who were transferred to a hospital before their death in the total count of nursing home deaths. While this re-categorizing of deaths does not alter the total death count in New York which is nearing 43,000, the most in the United States, it does add over 3,800 deaths to the total number of nursing home deaths making it now 12,743. The New York Health Department has disputed some of the conclusions drawn by James’s report highlighting the fact that the report fails to directly link the March 25th policy to an increase in nursing home deaths, however, the report does state that “over 4,000 nursing home deaths occurred after the issuance of the March 25 guidance. While additional data and analysis would be required to ascertain the effect of such admissions in individual facilities, these admissions may have contributed to increased risk of nursing home resident infection, and subsequent fatalities.” Furthermore, the report notes that staffing issues and failures to adhere to protocols for controlling the spread of COVID-19 around the facilities possibly contributed to the high numbers of deaths in these facilities.
Perhaps the media’s praise for Governor Cuomo was a touch premature considering the state-wide scandal that is now breaking into the daylight. Governor Cuomo may also be a victim of the fact that Donald Trump is no longer sucking all the proverbial air out of the room giving the media more time to cast a critical eye on political figures around the country. Nevertheless, it remains a tragic reality that Cuomo’s administration dropped the ball in its efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 and protect the most vulnerable populations. It remains to be seen whether or not this will spell the demise of Governor Cuomo’s once promising political career. There have already been calls for the resignation of New York’s health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker. It will be interesting to see whether these are soon directed to Governor Cuomo as well.
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Response to Article regarding Governor Cuomo and Emmy award.
ReplyDeleteJoseph, don’t misunderstand my comments to your blog that may appear to support the esteemed Governor, I am not a fan of his. You have to think about where we were as a country and our understanding of Covid-19 in March. The virus was so new, every health official had a different take on it. Dr Fauci, others in the scientific community around that time period played down the effects of the virus, nobody and I mean nobody had a clue of how deadly and contagious it would be ultimately be. China, where it apparently originated withheld pertinent information that would have possibly been helpful to the rest of the world. The U.N. World Health Organization was aware of what was going on in China although for whatever reason chose to help China suppress the information. In March 2020 we weren’t wearing masks and were still at KSU in normal face to face classes. We cannot pass judgments on how the federal or state governments acted in March based on the knowledge of virus we have today, it’s just not fair. An analogy to this is people today passing judgement how society approached slavery 150 or 250 years ago based on today’s standards or race equality, again not fair or meaningful.
Herb Porath