The Real Numbers From New York

The New York Post posted an article today about the actual number of coronavirus deaths in nursing homes in the state.

The article reports:

The state Department of Health quietly updated its chart of nursing-home deaths to include those who died at hospitals as well as in the facilities. The update added more than 4,000 deaths to the state tally as of Thursday.

The Upper East Side Rehabilitation and Nursing Center had 29 deaths at the home, and another 51 in a hospital.

Information for the Bronxcare Special Care Center had previously showed only eight COVID-19 deaths. But there were 20 additional deaths in the hospital, according to the new data.

At the Boropark Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare, an additional 41 people died in the hospital on top of 32 at the home.

The article notes:

The state Department of Health had refused for months to provide the information until it was forced to by a judge Thursday.

Acting Albany Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O’Connor blasted the DOH for claiming it could not produce the data, and ordered the stats released within five days. The Empire Center for Public Policy had sought the information under a Freedom of Information Law request.

State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker finally released the total number of nursing home deaths on Jan. 28, putting the figure at 12,743 with the hospital fatalities, instead of 8,740. The disclosure came after Attorney General Letitia James produced a damning report saying the number of deaths could be as much as 50 percent higher than officials claimed.

The state has been criticized for early directives that mandated ill-equipped and understaffed nursing homes accept COVID-19 patients, knowing the elderly population was most at risk for the virus.

It is obscene that the courts had to be called into action to get this data. The number of nursing home deaths in New York was covered up to protect the reputation of Governor Cuomo. Now the facts are out, and it is up to the residents of the state to decide in the next election whether he will remain Governor. It is criminal that with a hospital ship, a hospital set up in Central Park, and the Javits Center equipped to handle coronavirus patients, patients were sent into nursing homes where the most vulnerable lived.