Table of Content
- COVID-19 deaths in NY nursing homes were 50 percent higher than claimed: probe
- Coronavirus in NY
- Lack of Proper Infection Controls
- COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Brings Hope to Nursing Homes
- Latest Maps and Data
- Nursing Home Deaths In New York Appear To Be Massively Undercounted, New York AG Finds
- Audit recommends better data collection and cooperation
"Families are calling me. They have not seen or heard from their loved one, many since right after the virus hit the city." "We are doing it alone," the facility's CEO says, praising staff efforts in the face of shortages and lack of support during the coronavirus outbreak. Cuomo’s office and the state Department of Health did not immediately respond to the AG’s findings, which were first reported by The New York Times. On March 23, Cuomo created limited immunity provisions for health care providers relating to COVID-19. The Emergency Disaster Treatment Protection Act provides immunity to health care professionals from potential liability arising from certain decisions, actions and/or omissions related to the care of individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The state's official COVID-19 death count in nursing home is roughly 8,700 right now. A 56 percent increase on that count would bring the total deaths to well over 13,000. A controversial March 25 order to send recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals into nursing homes that was designed to free up hospital bed space at the height of the pandemic has drawn withering criticism from relatives and patient advocates who contend it accelerated nursing home outbreaks.
COVID-19 deaths in NY nursing homes were 50 percent higher than claimed: probe
The report adds a new layer to the criticism Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has faced over the state’s handling of Covid-19 in long-term care facilities. But epidemiologists and academics derided the study for a flawed methodology that sidestepped key questions and relied on selective stats, including the state’s official death toll figures. Additionally, it identifies examples in which nursing home operators reported different information to DOH then to the OAG.
In one example, a facility reported five confirmed and six presumed COVID-19 deaths at the facility as of Aug. 3 to DOH. However, the facility reported to OAG a total of 27 COVID-19 deaths at the facility and 13 hospital deaths – a discrepancy of 29 deaths. Former Governor George Pataki lambasted Andrew Cuomo in February 2021, saying the "cover-up is worse than the crime". New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called for further investigations into Cuomo and his administration's handling of the crisis.
Coronavirus in NY
Asked at a previously scheduled news conference about the attorney general's report, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said, "We have to get the full truth, and we have to make sure it never ever happens again, nothing like this happens again, and we have to be honest about the numbers." New York still leads the nation in Covid-19 deaths with nearly 44,000, NBC News data shows. The Upper East Side Rehabilitation and Nursing Center had 29 deaths at the home, and another 51 in a hospital.
But discrepancies also lie among the on-site deaths reported directly by nursing homes to the attorney general investigators and those publicized by the DOH, the report shows. While the 62 nursing homes surveyed reported 1,266 facility deaths, the DOH publicized only 1,229 for the same homes. New York health chief Zucker explained during the legislative hearing that New York only counts deaths on the nursing home property to avoid “double-counting” deaths in both the home and the hospital. And while he acknowledged the state keeps a running count of nursing home resident deaths at hospitals, he declined to provide even a rough estimate to lawmakers.
Lack of Proper Infection Controls
He said they see many more hospitalizations among people who are unvaccinated. As nursing home leaders redouble efforts to get staff and residents boosted with the new vaccine version, now recommended for those 6 months and older, they face complacency, misinformation and COVID-19 fatigue. They are calling on the White House for help with an “all hands on deck” approach. In Brooklyn, several dozen residents who lined the street outside and clapped and cheered the nursing home staff members seemed to understand that they have been doing everything they can under enormously difficult circumstances.
But there were 20 additional deaths in the hospital, according to the new data. More than 15,000 New York nursing home patients have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic started. In one week alone in April 2020, 5,156 nursing home patients died of the virus, the state stats show. There is no antiviral medication to treat RSV, but health officials say parents should seek medical attention if their children are having difficulty breathing. RSV cases have also been overwhelming hospitals nationwide, but officials in New York say that it has not become an issue yet in the state, however they are watching bed capacity and pediatric admissions closely. The contract for thousands of nurses at a dozen private sector hospitals in the city, including Mount Sinai Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Maimonides Medical Center, is set to expire at the end of the year.
COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Brings Hope to Nursing Homes
The staggering toll is one of the most tragic aspects of the pandemic in New York and in nursing homes and senior care centers across the country. A report by the New York State Health Department listed 55 deaths presumably caused by the coronavirus at the facility since the outbreak began, the highest toll at any senior care center in New York. The New York attorney general on Thursday accused the state of drastically undercounting Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes, saying in a stinging new rebuke of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration that the official tally of about 8,500 may be off by as much as 50 percent. During the initial outset of the pandemic, Cuomo received accolades for his response to COVID-19. His name was floated as a possible replacement of Joe Biden as the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee due to his newfound popularity.
New York’s coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount. Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there. It is worth noting that there remain 13 states that report no information on nursing home fatalities and only nine states, including New York, report nursing home fatalities that are “presumed” COVID and not confirmed COVID. DOH has consistently found numerous inaccuracies when examining unverified data and, as a result, months ago DOH began an audit of fatality numbers reported by nursing homes to ensure public release of these statistics were accurate. This audit found entries where a deceased individual was listed as dying both in a hospital and in a nursing home, duplicate entries, and entries where the individual had no name or listed a date of death in a facility before they had been admitted, and other issues that suggested inaccurate data inputs. Over the past months, DOH contacted numerous individual facilities to resolve these discrepancies.
The audit recommends the health department, in addition to expanding use of infection control data and improving the quality of reported data, strengthen its coordination with local officials and collect supplemental data through other sources, like the CDC. The New York state Health Department underreported the Covid-19 death toll in nursing homes by as much as 50 percent, the state’s attorney general charged Thursday. The report places most of the blame for the deaths on low-rated nursing homes, which received the same mandate as higher-rated ones even though they were ill-equipped to properly separate and care for COVID-positive patients. The blame for the undercounting, however, seems to be placed on the Cuomo administration.
Nursing home populations are at a high risk of being infected by — and dying from — the coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, is known to be particularly lethal to adults in their 60s and older who have underlying health conditions. And it can spread more easily through congregate facilities, where many people live in a confined environment and workers move from room to room. In California and New York, Topol said, hospitalizations for seniors with COVID-19 have already surpassed those during spring and summer omicron waves. The facility also tried to move some residents suspected of carrying the virus to the military field hospital set up at New York City's Jacob Javits Convention Center.
In light of these revelations, New Yorkers are furious at both Cuomo and negligent nursing homes. The lawmaker, Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Queens Democrat, had said he believed the administration was “trying to dodge having any incriminating evidence” when it withheld the data. Mr. Cuomo is now in the most turbulent period of his three terms in office, his political future clouded as New York continues to grapple with the virus and the economic toll it has taken. Dozens of current and former employees of the governor’s office during Mr. Cuomo’s tenure have also described it more broadly as a chaotic and unprofessional workplace that was particularly toxic for young women. The acting executive deputy commissioner of the DOH disagreed with the report in a 13-page response, which was also included in the audit. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office referred CNN to the DOH’s response to the audit.
The audit shows a total of 13,147 deaths happened during that time frame, but only 9,076 were reported. The New York health department undercounted the number of Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes by thousands during former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s time in office, an audit conducted by state officials found. The Office of Attorney General hand-picked 62 nursing home facilities and requested in-facility death totals and total deaths, which would include patients who were sent to hospitals and died there.
But Zucker also acknowledged that the state health department’s own audit of nursing home data shows that more than 3,800 nursing home residents died in hospitals from March 1 of last year to Jan. 19, putting the total number of state COVID-19 deaths tied to nursing homes at almost 13,000. “The investigations also revealed that nursing homes’ lack of compliance with infection control protocols put residents at increased risk of harm, and facilities that had lower pre-pandemic staffing ratings had higher COVID-19 fatality rates,” the report states. The report, based on preliminary findings, suggests that a larger number of long-term care residents died from the virus than reflected in state Department of Health data and that government guidance requiring admission of Covid-19 patients into nursing homes may have put residents at increased risk of harm. The state has been accused of depressing the total number of deaths by only counting those that occurred in the facilities, leaving out any resident who was transferred to a hospital. On March 4, 2021, interviews and reports from The New York Times found that several of Cuomo's aides, Melissa DeRosa, Linda Lacewell and Jim Malatras had rewritten a report from state health officials to omit 9,250 COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents. Following Attorney Genera Letitia James' January report that first exposed the cover-up, Cuomo's administration released complete data, including the nursing home deaths, and cited the possibility of a politically-motivated investigation from the Department of Justice as a justification.
The governor has highlighted his leadership during the pandemic, which has killed more than 40,000 people in New York. That statistic could add thousands to the state’s official care home death toll of just over 6,600. But so far the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to divulge the number, leading to speculation the state is manipulating the figures to make it appear it is doing better than other states and to make a tragic situation less dire.
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