Top staffers of Gov. Andrew Cuomo apologized to state lawmakers this week for the reluctance of the governor’s office to release requested data on COVID-19 deaths at hospice centers, according to phone records published by the New York Post.
The New York Post, which first disclosed the call, reported that Andrew Cuomo’s staffer, Melissa DeRosa, told Democratic lawmakers on the phone on Oct. 10 that Cuomo’s office was concerned that the number of deaths would be “used against us” by federal prosecutors. “used against us.” “So we’re basically freezing the data,” she said.
About two weeks ago, New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report indicating that the actual number of hospice deaths from March to August of last year may have been double the officially announced 6,400.
State lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, see this as a cover-up and are angry that their decision to grant Cuomo emergency powers to fight the Epidemic last year is now being reconsidered.
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a Democrat, tweeted, “This is a betrayal of the public trust and we must be held fully accountable for this.”
Last summer, New York state lawmakers pressed for further disclosure of the number of residents who died from Coronavirus Infection 2019 (COVID-19) in hospice centers, and Governor Gummer refused.
Hospice residents who were sent for treatment were not included in the list of hospice deaths proposed by the New York State government, which state lawmakers argued was a cover-up of the actual severity of the crisis.
At about the same Time, the U.S. Department of Justice began requesting data on hospice deaths. The Justice Department was under the supervision of former President Trump, and Gummer and Trump, a Republican, had frequent spats. Gummer accused Trump of failing to disclose the worsening outbreak to the public.
In a statement released today, Dairosa said her office decided that it must put the federal government’s requests first before responding to state lawmakers’ requests.
“As I told state lawmakers on the phone, we cannot respond to their requests as quickly as everyone would like,” she said in the statement.
Gummer’s administration also tried to refuse when the EmpireCenter, a conservative think tank, invoked the transparency law to request the data, but later had to provide it.
A judge ordered New York State to release the number of people who died from the disease this month, and according to the state’s figures, thousands more people died in hospice centers from COVID-19 than previously announced when the number of people who were taken to the hospital and then died was taken into account.
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