Projection is a hell of a thing.
Disgraced former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo hid as many as 12,000 deaths from the state’s COVID-19 death toll, according to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. This is a confirmation and expansion of what a member of Cuomo’s administration already admitted earlier this year, specifically with regard to nursing homes — namely, that the Cuomo team hid from state health officials the true COVID-19 death toll in senior centers.
In other words, as governor, Cuomo did exactly what all the left-wing cranks and loons have falsely accused Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of doing.
Under Cuomo’s corrupt tutelage, New York reported that 43,400 died from the coronavirus pandemic. The Hochul administration, citing death certificate data submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports that the number is actually closer to 55,400.
“We’re now releasing more data than had been released before publicly, so people know the nursing home deaths and the hospital deaths are consistent with what’s being displayed by the CDC,” Hochul said Wednesday during an appearance on MSNBC. “There’s a lot of things that weren’t happening, and I’m going to make them happen. Transparency will be the hallmark of my administration.”
Cuomo stepped down from office this month after an independent state investigation concluded he had sexually harassed up to 11 women, including state employees.
Before he resigned, Cuomo touted a death toll figure that included only laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 deaths reported via a state database that collects data from hospitals and long-term care facilities. The figure cited by the former governor excluded in-home deaths, as well as deaths that occurred in hospices and state prisons. Also, the Cuomo number “excluded people who likely died of COVID-19 but never got a positive test to confirm the diagnosis,” Fox News notes.
“There are presumed and confirmed deaths. People should know both,” Hochul said this week in an interview with NPR.
She adds, “Also, as of yesterday, we’re using CDC numbers, which will be consistent. And so, there’s no opportunity for us to mask those numbers, nor do I want to mask those numbers. The public deserves a clear, honest picture of what’s happening. And that’s whether it’s good or bad, they need to know the truth. And that’s how we restore confidence.”
Hochul’s revelation comes several months after Cuomo’s former secretary, Melissa DeRosa, admitted to state lawmakers that the administration intentionally misreported the number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths.
The governor’s office hid New York’s true nursing home death toll from state health officials because “right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] turns this into a giant political football,” DeRosa said in a private meeting, adding that the actual nursing home tally would “be used against us” by federal investigators.
Cuomo himself used the doctored numbers to boast that New York had a lower percentage of nursing home deaths than many other states. Also, it’s worth mentioning that Cuomo ordered staffers to bury the true nursing home numbers so he could sell a book touting his “achievements” as a pandemic leader, according to the New York Times.
It’s hard to overstate the long-term consequences that this deadly act of dishonesty likely had on the rest of the country.
New York health officials could have used the information that was hidden from them to contain the pandemic more effectively, aiding not just the state, but also the entire nation. Instead, the Empire State became superspreader No. 1, seeding all the other states and endangering vulnerable populations everywhere. The Cuomo administration’s obscuring of the data likely contributed directly to the wrecking of vulnerable populations in the other 49 states, leading to an attack on individual states’ healthcare systems.
Hope he doesn’t think his book was worth it.
