Reporting from the New York Post tonight confirms what the public has long suspected: that New York Democrats, under Governor Andrew Cuomo’s leadership, hid the real numbers of nursing home COVID deaths to avoid political accountability and to slither out of a Department of Justice investigation.
Please read the New York Post piece. The excerpts of the audio recording of New York Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa are damning.
And then consider the timeline.
January 31, 2020: Based on a new study of COVID spread, Dr. Anthony Fauci states “asymptomatic transmission is occurring.”
February 18, 2020: Largest study (at the time) concludes that elderly are most at risk from COVID.
March 2, 2020: NPR reports that nursing homes are uniquely vulnerable to COVID.
March 25, 2020: The New York Department of Health issues this mandate to all nursing homes in the state: “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.” The order also prohibited nursing homes from requiring a COVID test from a previously hospitalized resident before admission. By this time, as outlined above, it was known that asymptomatic spread was occurring - and that the elderly were the most vulnerable to COVID.
August 26, 2020: The Department of Justice requests “COVID-19 data from the governors of states that issued orders which may have resulted in the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home residents.”
October 27, 2020: DOJ Civil Division sends a letter to Michael G. Bass, Deputy General Counsel of the NY State Health Department, requesting “information regarding COVID-19 and privately operated nursing homes.”
October 28, 2020: Reporting confirms that DOJ “ramps up inquiry into NY care home deaths”
November 3(ish), 2020: Joe Biden is elected president.
January 28, 2021: New York Attorney General Letitia James reveals an investigation’s findings that New York nursing home deaths “may be more than 50 percent higher” than Governor Cuomo’s administration claims.
January 29, 2021: In response to questions on the NY AG’s report and the DOJ investigation on New York’s handling of COVID and its nursing homes, White House press secretary Jen Psaki states, “any investigation would be led by the Department of Justice.”
February 11, 2021: New York Post reports the bombshell that Cuomo’s administration knowingly hid COVID nursing home death data. This same New York Post article notes that the DOJ has “dropped” the investigation.
Apologies for the election inconvenience.
Today’s NY Post reporting exposes the worst type of political cynicism and cover-up we have seen in quite some time. Health officials essentially killed off thousands of nursing home residents with their mandate and then knowingly hid data on nursing home COVID deaths from the public.
Thousands dead. And to whom did the Secretary to the Governor, Melissa DeRosa, apologize? Not the the victims, but to fellow Democrats for putting them “in that political position with the Republicans.”
The Biden DOJ Rewards the Cuomo Stall Game.
I provided the timeline for a couple reasons.
First, it shows not only that the Cuomo administration knew, or should have known, that they were putting lives at risk with their order for nursing homes to accept COVID patients.
Second, it lays out the timeframe in which the DOJ started the investigation into nursing home deaths in New York, and whether “state orders requiring admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes is responsible for the deaths of nursing home residents.”
As the election approached, the DOJ (in October 2020) requested information on “grossly substandard care” given to New York nursing home residents:
This information was apparently hidden from the Department of Justice because the Cuomo Administration was afraid the numbers would be “used against us.”
But not any more.
After January 20, 2021, the DOJ was restructured in the image of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. We’ve already seen the results, as the Biden/Harris DOJ dropped a civil rights lawsuit filed against Yale for race-based discrimination against Asian applicants.
Now add Governor Cuomo to the growing list of beneficiaries. Per DeRosa, “All signs point to they are not looking at this, they’ve dropped it.”
It looks like Cuomo’s game worked. He hid the data, ran out the clock on the Trump administration, and was rewarded with a dropped investigation from the Biden DOJ for his malfeasance.
Can we give him another Emmy?
a tragedy of our current system is that these politically well connected individuals fail upwards. Expect Andrew to be a US Senator or offered a role in the biden admin.
In a just world, i believe, Cuomo should apologize and resign. instead he gets a multimillion dollar book deal about how wonderfully he managed the pandemic for NY and gets an emmy.
Thank you techno for another great piece of writing!