Cuomo’s directive to send elderly people with COVID-19 into nursing homes led to a spike in deaths, reports the non-profit Empire Center for Public Policy, an Albany think tank. The report tied “several hundred and possibly more than 1,000” fatalities to the decision, which was ordered on March 25, 2020, and rescinded less than two months later on May 10.
“The findings contradict a central conclusion of the state Department of Health’s (DOH) July 6 (2020) report on coronavirus in nursing homes, which said, among other things: ‘Admission policies were not a significant factor in nursing home fatalities,’ and ‘the data do not show a consistent relationship between admissions and increased mortality,’” according to a draft report prepared by the Empire Center. Cuomo has used the DOH report to dodge responsibility for the deaths since its release.
The DOH report primarily blamed the spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes on infected but asymptomatic staffers and visitors, and has repeatedly been cited by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to deny any responsibility — even though he himself had warned on March 29, four days after his fateful directive, that “Coronavirus in a nursing home is like fire in dry grass.” No kidding, Andy. Then why did you do it? Why didn’t you stop it sooner? Perhaps because using the USS Comfort, the Jacob Javits Convention Center, and the various field hospitals would have handed Trump a media victory?
The Empire Center said it arrived at its conclusions by comparing the death rates at facilities that admitted COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals to the rates at others that didn’t, then crunching the numbers to “a statistical confidence level of 99 percent.” All of the info for their report came from the DOH’s July 2020 report. – READ MORE
Listen to the insightful Thomas Paine Podcast Below --