Cuomo offers new alternative "facts" about nursing home deaths

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on May 10, 2020 touting New York's ranking in nursing home deaths

                                                                            

A year ago, when New York was reporting the most coronavirus nursing home deaths in the nation and Gov. Andrew Cuomo was under fire for ordering Covid 19 patients into nursing homes, Cuomo insisted New York was doing better than most states.

Those were the "facts," he said, presenting charts to prove his point.

New York, he said, in a May 10, 2020 briefing, ranked 34th of 50 states in terms of nursing home deaths as a percent of total state coronavirus deaths. 

Only 12 percent of New York's total deaths occurred at nursing homes compared to a whopping 81 percent of West Virgina's coronavirus deaths, he said. (See above chart)

In months to come, Cuomo bragged that New York was doing even better, ranking 46th out of 50 in terms of  nursing homes deaths compared to other states.

He touted that number even after  New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a report in January that found  Cuomo had undercounted nursing home deaths by about 50 percent -- bringing the total number of nursing home fatalities attributed to coronavirus to more than 15,000.

Since then, Cuomo has faced multiple allegations about covering up the real number of coronavirus deaths in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. 

Many critics cite Cuomo's March 25, 2020 order requiring nursing homes to take Covid patients -- an order he rescinded at the same time he presented the above chart.

So what happened today when Cuomo was questioned about a news story that his administration repeatedly overruled release of the actual nursing home death toll?

"Let's talk some facts," Cuomo said at a news briefing.

"We always published the total number of deaths....which is the only number that means anything," he said. "It was about the accuracy of that number."

As for nursing home deaths, "Many different states counted it many different ways,"  Cuomo said

A recent report for Connecticut on nursing home deaths found "you can't compare" death tolls because every state counted it differently, he said.

"The only thing that mattered was the total number of deaths," Cuomo said -- after months of comparing New York'  nursing home deaths to other states' nursing home death tolls.

So if the only thing that mattered is total deaths,  Cuomo should have been praising West Virginia last May when West Virginia had 51 total coronavirus deaths while New York had 21,700 fatalities attributed to Covid at the time.

Those are the facts.