Cuomo Aides Altered COVID Nursing Home Deaths In Study: Reports

NEW YORK CITY — Top aides to Gov. Andrew Cuomo altered a state report to strip out a higher tally of COVID-19 nursing home deaths than they publicly had admitted, according to a pair of bombshell stories.

The Wall Street Journal and New York Times dropped the stories late Wednesday and further fueled a political conflagration over Cuomo's handling of nursing homes.

The stories indicated that Cuomo's top aides and advisers not only knew the true number of nursing home deaths in June — much earlier than they have acknowledged — but actively tried to hide data that reflected badly on his growing reputation as a competent leader in the pandemic.

Cuomo had just started writing a book — later titled an "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic" — as his aides worked to change the Department of Health report released in July, according to the New York Times.

Beth Garvey, special counsel and senior adviser to the governor, issued a statement that argued a controversial March 25, 2020 order that nursing homes should take COVID-positive patients didn't drive deaths.

"The out of facility data was omitted after DOH could not confirm it had been adequately verified - this did not change the conclusion of the report, which was and is that the March 25 order was 'not a driver of nursing home infections or fatalities,'" Garvey said.

Cuomo long faced questions over nursing home deaths in the pandemic but the controversy moved to another level after Attorney General Letitia James issued a report in January that his administration undercounted them by 50 percent.

Governor's office officials denied they covered up deaths — indeed, the final tally of coronavirus fatalities in the state hasn't changed. But for months they didn't count nursing home residents who died in hospitals. When they finally did release that data, the number of nursing home and long-term care facility deaths stood at about 15,000.

The controversy was furthered fueled in February when Cuomo's top aide Melissa DeRosa admitted to lawmakers that the governor's office withheld data from them on nursing home deaths. Officials argued they needed to fulfill a request by federal investigators first.

DeRosa, along Linda Lacewell, the head of the state’s Department of Financial Services, and adviser Jim Malatras were involved in changing the July state report, according to the Times.

Read the Wall Street Journal report here and the New York Times report here.