Governor Kathy Hochul says she’s putting together a team of independent experts to look into New York’s nursing home policies during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state, when thousands of elderly residents died.
Hochul, saying the “people of the state deserve to know”, says she is launching an independent analysis of every aspect of the decision-making process during the pandemic to find out what worked and what did not.
“The good, the bad, the ugly,” said Hochul, who said the examination will also include the effectiveness of mask mandates, economic shutdowns and remote learning.
A report by State Attorney General Tish James found that Hochul’s predecessor, former Governor Andrew Cuomo and his administration, undercounted by 50% the number of deaths in the homes during the height of the pandemic in the spring of 2020. At the time, Cuomo was writing a $5 million memoir about his leadership abilities during COVID. The controversy, and a sexual harassment scandal, led to Cuomo’s resignation last August. Cuomo denies all of the allegations.
Republican State Senator Jim Tedisco, along with Democratic State Assemblyman Ron Kim, is the sponsor of a bipartisan bill that would authorize an investigation of nursing home policy, with subpoena power. Tedisco, in a statement, says he hopes Hochul’s examination will not be a “whitewash” of what he says was Cuomo’s cover-up of the real number of nursing home deaths.
The governor says she’ll be releasing more details about the investigation soon.
