Audit: NY Health Department under Cuomo 'misled the public' on nursing home deaths

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A New York Department of Health audit released on Tuesday found that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) failed to publicly account for the deaths of 4,100 nursing home residents in New York during the coronavirus pandemic between April 2020 and February 2021.

The audit from state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli indicated that Health Department officials underreported the death toll by up to 50 percent and concluded that the Health Department fell short of its “ethical” and “moral” obligations to report numbers accurately.

But internally, the department had the more accurate data. As of Feb. 3, 2021, the administration's internal data reported 13,147 nursing home resident deaths, but only 9,076 deaths were publicly reported, meaning more than 30 percent of deaths were not made public, the report showed.

“Rather than providing accurate and reliable information during a public health emergency, the department instead conformed its presentation to the executive’s narrative, often presenting data in a manner that misled the public,” the audit report said.

“Our audit findings are extremely troubling,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “The public was misled by those at the highest level of state government through distortion and suppression of the facts when New Yorkers deserved the truth.”

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