The idolized leadership of Governor Cuomo’s pandemic response may not be as legitimate as the public thought. The inaccuracy of the number of nursing home deaths in the State of New York has led to growing backlash towards the governor. Many critics are accusing him of intentionally miscounting the number of deaths for political gain. In a statement, New York Attorney General Letitia James claimed that the Cuomo administration undercounted the number of deaths by as much as “fifty percent.” This large margin of error opened the floodgates for critics and forced Cuomo to address the allegations in a press conference where he gave his explanations for what went wrong.
In response to the inaccurate reporting on the presumed deaths pertaining to nursing homes, Cuomo replied, “But who cares who died in a nursing home or died in a hospital, they died!” Accurate reporting of Covid-19 related deaths matter tremendously. Families want to know about the status of their loved ones and the public needs to know how to operate through the pandemic. Cuomo built his rise to national notoriety on the prioritization of reporting facts to the American public. After an audit into the deaths by nursing home residents, officials were able to find out that the number of nursing home deaths were low because they were not counted when the patient died in the hospital. The threat of Covid-19 in New York nursing homes was much higher than the government wanted the public to know.
In a Covid-19 style interview through a glass separator, Sandy Wood and Sandra Johnson, two residents of Meadowbrook nursing home in Freeport Long Island,expressed their concerns on the inaccurate reporting of nursing home deaths. “In my ten years of being here, I have seen many people come and go but never at this rate. I have never been under such stress before and to hear what’s happening on the TV with our Governor doesn’t make it any easier,” said Wood. Johnson added, “This whole time I thought we were in good hands with Mr. Cuomo’s leadership, but I’m starting to see that I was misled. We have been locked in our rooms for the entire pandemic and I still don’t know if that is actually helping us or not. All of this craziness is just making me feel like it will never end.” The inaccuracy of information from the highest office in the state has hurt the lives of real people. The nation’s elderly are the most vulnerable population and they are scrambling for safety from a virus that lurks like a thief in the night, showing up when least expected.
According to the Department of Health, the number of nursing home residents that died from Covid-19 was undercounted by over three thousand eight hundred cases. That accounts for nearly forty percent of all Covid-19 nursing home deaths for the entire state of New York. Governor Cuomo’s policies did not help this number either. For a period of time, he allowed positive Covid patients to report back to their respective nursing homes which was a clear violation to the health and safety of each facility. Thousands of people have suffered the consequences of an administration that has not been transparent in a time where people are yearning for answers. The stories of Sandy Wood and Sandra Johnson are shared with thousands of members of nursing homes across the state of New York.
