A Staten Island, New York, nursing home administrator says he and officials at other facilities were "petrified" by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s March 2020 order that COVID-19 patients be accepted in long-term care facilities.
Michael Krause made his comments in an interview with Fox News broadcast on Thursday.
But he said state officials “shot down” his concerns about the order that the patients be accepted at the facilities rather than hospitals.
"Many facilities vocalized it," Kraus said. "They were petrified, but they were more petrified of the Department of Health ... once it [my concern] was shot down, I never spoke [about it] again."
More than 15,000 people are confirmed to have died in New York state nursing homes and long-term care facilities from COVID-19. But, as recently as January 2021, the state reported a fraction of that number — around 8,500 deaths, Fox News noted.
Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa admitted the Cuomo administration withheld data on nursing home deaths from media and lawmakers fearing a Trump administration Justice Department investigation.
"Basically, we froze," she told lawmakers in a private admission, per a report in the New York Post in February. "Because then we were in a position where we weren't sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice – or what we give to you guys, what we start saying – was going to be used against us, while we weren't sure if there was going to be an investigation.
"That played a very large role into this."
DeRosa told the lawmakers in a two-hour video conference call, per the Post, the Cuomo administration rebuffed a legislative request for the nursing home death toll because "right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] turns this into a giant political football."
More than 9,000 recovering coronavirus patients in New York state were released from hospitals into nursing homes early in the pandemic under a controversial order that was scrapped amid criticisms it accelerated outbreaks, according to new records obtained by The Associated Press.
Cuomo is under pressure to resign after being hit with allegations of sexual harassment by women and of groping,
The furor over the sexual harassment allegations has obscured the nursing home scandal that for almost a year has threatened Cuomo’s gubernatorial grip.
Critics have said, and news investigations have shown, that the governor’s office significantly downplayed and sought to keep quiet the thousands of deaths that resulted after the order. Those allegations have dogged Cuomo even before the sexual harassment scandal enveloped his administration.
The U.S. attorney in Brooklyn and the FBI are reportedly investigating how Cuomo’s administration handled data on nursing home deaths during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Times Union newspaper in Albany, New York, the investigation is in its preliminary stages.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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