New York's long term care COVID deaths may be underreported by 50%
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has responded to a report by the state's attorney general, Letitia James, that found that COVID-19 related deaths in nursing homes may have been underreported by as much as 50 per cent.
The revised figures put New York’s death toll as one of the highest in the nation.
Cuomo said “everybody did the best they could,” and blamed the Trump administration for being largely responsible for the deaths in the state for coming up with the health guidance, Fox News reports.
“When I say the State Department of Health, as the report said, the State Department of Health followed federal guidance, so if you think there was a mistake then go talk to the federal government,” Cuomo said.
“It's not about pointing fingers or blame, it's that this became a political football, right? Look, whether a person died in a hospital or died in a nursing home, it's people dying. People dying.”
Cuomo used a hypothetical example to explain why he believed people died in nursing homes.
“I was in a hospital, I got transferred to a nursing home, and my father died. My father was in a nursing home got transferred to a hospital, my father died,” Cuomo suggested. “People died. By the way, the same people are dying today. 96 percent of the people who die are older people with comorbidities, which happens to be the population that lives in nursing homes. It's continuing today.”
In the state attorney general’s report, authorities found that the New York State Department of Health had underreported COVID-19 death figures. As previously reported on Rebel News, the numbers did not include nursing home residents who died after being transferred to a hospital.
The report comes months after New York refused to reveal real numbers of deaths. It shows that at least 12,743 long-term care residents had died of the virus as of Jan. 19, thousands more than the official tally of 8,505.
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