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Cuomo acknowledges withholding New York nursing home pandemic death toll from lawmakers, public

Tuesday, 16 February 2021 8:02 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 16 February 2021 8:02 AM ]

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (File photo)

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has acknowledged he withheld data on COVID-19 nursing home deaths from state lawmakers.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Cuomo said “lessons were learned” in not disclosing the data and that things “should have been done differently.”

“The last thing I wanted to do was aggravate a terrible situation,” said Cuomo, a third-term Democrat. “There were people’s requests, press requests that were not answered in a timely manner.”

The coronavirus has killed over 15,000 people in New York state’s nursing homes and long term care facilities, however, as recently as last month, the state reported only 8,500 deaths.

In August, requests from state lawmakers and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) were made for full accounting, along with numerous other requests from the media, Cuomo acknowledged, noting that the state prioritized answering the DOJ first, and so other requests were not answered.

He blamed “politics” for the spiraling scandal that has engulfed his administration, claiming that “there’s nothing to investigate” regarding the cover-up to which Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa confessed during a video conference call with Democratic lawmakers held last week.

DeRosa admitted “we froze” over whether to come clean to the Legislature — or the public — about the actual number of dead people at nursing homes in the face of a DOJ inquiry.

“Because then 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 said in the Wednesday evening conference call.

Meanwhile, State Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) said Cuomo was not telling the truth.

If the Governor had actually informed the legislature months ago that his office was withholding the data they had on total nursing home deaths, there would’ve been no need for them to have a call with a group of legislators last week to inform them of this for the first time.
— Julia Salazar (@JuliaCarmel__) February 15, 2021

In addition, State Sen. John Liu (D-Queens) also said Cuomo should not have withheld “information that the public deserves to know,” saying he would support legislation curbing the governor’s emergency powers.

“The status quo can’t remain. There needs to be a revocation of some of the governor’s emergency powers,” Liu said on the Fox News Channel.

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