NYS health officials undercounted COVID nursing home deaths to boost Cuomo’s ‘narrative’: comptrollerBy Bernadette Hogan and Bruce Golding
March 15, 2022
The state Health Department intentionally “misled the public” about the number of nursing home deaths from COVID-19 to help burnish former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reputation before a sexual harassment scandal forced him to resign in disgrace, according to a blistering comptroller’s audit released Tuesday.
Auditors found that DOH officials undercounted the death toll by at least 4,100 residents and at times by more than 50 percent, allowing Cuomo to repeatedly and falsely claim that New York was doing a better job than other states in protecting highly vulnerable seniors, the report says.
“While the Department’s duty is to act solely to promote public health, we determined that, 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 report says.
In a prepared statement, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli called the audit findings “extremely troubling.”
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/03/15/ny-undercounted-covid-nursing-home-deaths-to-boost-cuomo-comptroller/
