New York COVID-19 nursing home deaths increase

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
• New York Has Dramatically Undercounted COVID Nursing Home Deaths, Report Finds

The State Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, has opened an impeachment inquiry. Dr. Howard Zucker, the state health commissioner, insisted in a statement that there was no "undercount." The Times and other media outlets have also praised Cuomo’s coronavirus response. Acting Albany Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O’Connor blasted the DOH for claiming it could not produce the data, and ordered the stats released within five days. The Empire Center for Public Policy had sought the information under a Freedom of Information Law request. In the first week of January 2021, fatalities in nursing homes reached 341, according to state Department of Health statistics complied by the Empire Center.

One of Cuomo’s top aides admitted in February 2021 that the administration delayed the release of nursing home Covid-19 death data, wary of a US Justice Department preliminary inquiry. Cuomo, who was widely lauded in Democratic circles for his leadership in the early days of the pandemic, has since been under significant scrutiny over his administration’s guidance regarding Covid-19 and nursing homes. At the Boropark Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare, an additional 41 people died in the hospital on top of 32 at the home. The Sheepshead Nursing & Rehabilitation Center had nine deaths in the home, and 50 outside of it. The total number of nursing home patients who died from COVID-19 is now 13,163 with nearly one-third dying in a hospital.

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.

The disclosure came after Attorney General Letitia James produced a damning report saying the number of deaths could be as much as 50 percent higher than officials claimed. While 4 percent of the country’s cases have occurred in long-term care facilities, deaths related to Covid-19 in these facilities account for about 31 percent of the country’s pandemic fatalities. Deaths in long-term care facilities accounted for more than a third of all Covid-19 deaths in the United States for much of the pandemic — at one point, rising to about 43 percent of all coronavirus deaths — but this number has declined since the vaccination rollout began.

Coronavirus in NY

The map and table below showing coronavirus cases at individual nursing homes were last updated as recently as Jan. 12, 2021. Over the course of the pandemic, 1 in 5 COVID-19 deaths was among those who were in a long-term care facility. Last spring and summer, death rates declined overall as more people gained protection from vaccination and prior infection. But the share of COVID-19–related deaths for the oldest old — adults 85 and older, who make up 2% of the population — grew to 40%. Phillips also urges people to get their boosters, especially if they are at risk of serious illness or planning to spend time with someone who is.

"FBI reportedly investigating Cuomo role in shielding donors from Covid liability". The Javits Center pictured on April 2, 2020, outfitted to care for patients with COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have highlighted just how important masks and other forms of personal protective equipment are. With regard to the harassment allegations, Mr. Cuomo has apologized for acting “in a way that made people feel uncomfortable,” but he has also said he did so unintentionally and has insisted repeatedly that he will not resign. Mr. Kim said the governor had called him and had threatened to ruin his reputation unless he rescinded the remarks. At a subsequent news conference, Mr. Cuomo responded by denouncing Mr. Kim in scathing terms.

Lack of Proper Infection Controls

The discrepancies between the two data sets stem mainly from the state's decision to omit in-hospital deaths, which occur after a resident is transferred from a nursing home to a hospital, from its official count. It’s just all over the place, all over the country,” said Toby Edelman of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit representing nursing home residents. It also affirmed that the State Department of Health's March 25 advisory memo was consistent with federal CMS and CDC guidance, and in fact was helpful in communities where hospitals had bed shortages during the initial surge.

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.

It also recommends the governor’s office assess and document its internal control environment at the health department and take steps to ensure cooperation with local officials, state oversight inquires and external reporting. There was no immediate response from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat whose pandemic response has been widely praised but who has also been criticized for waiting until May to reverse a state policy that required long-term care facilities to accept recovering patients who may still test positive for Covid-19. New York state finally released fatality data for individual nursing homes, painting a much grimmer picture of the toll taken by the COVID-19 virus. The New York Times is tracking the coronavirus at nursing homes and long-term care centers. “I’m concerned about the uptick in hospitalizations and deaths among seniors, and concerned about the lack of urgency at my mother’s nursing home in getting the residents and staff vaccinated" with the latest booster, she said.

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, the host of Cuomo Prime Time, had been subject to a rule that CNN put in place in 2013 that prevented him from interviewing or covering his brother Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo issued an order on March 25, 2020 that all New York State nursing homes must accept residents that are medically stable. The order further stated that "o resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19".

Latest Maps and Data

For example, I have been asking the Health Department for months for a basic breakdown of how coronavirus deaths are being recorded and have yet to receive a response to my repeated inquiries. I hope that my legislative colleagues take action now to remove these governor’s extraordinary powers and schedule appropriate hearings immediately using subpoena power, if necessary, to get answers that have been dodged for so many months. OAG received reports that nursing homes did not properly screen staff members before allowing them to enter the facility to work with residents. Among those reports, OAG received an allegation that a for-profit nursing home north of New York City failed to consistently conduct COVID-19 employee screening. He claimed that New York state did not cover-up the number of deaths in nursing homes, but acknowledged that officials should have released the information earlier.

As many as 17,000 nurses from 12 different private hospitals across New York City could go on strike on January 1 over contract negotiations. States with insufficient data to calculate a share of Covid-19 deaths are shaded gray. The CEO's impromptu pep rally was just one way Cobble Hill spent the day pushing back, insisting that the 364-bed nonprofit community had had little help from the city, the state or the federal government. “Nursing homes residents and workers deserve to live and work in safe environments, and I will continue to work hard to safeguard this basic right during this precarious time,” James said. The issue has dogged Cuomo, seen as a national star for his public messaging during the early days of the pandemic, since last summer.

Around the same time, he was celebrating the state’s initial success in controlling the virus’s spread after a devastating spring during which tens of thousands of people died. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been looking into whether Mr. Cuomo and his aides provided false data on resident deaths to the Justice Department, according to people with knowledge of the investigation. For months, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has defended himself against criticism of his administration’s handling of the coronavirus in nursing homes. The audit also stated “persistent underinvestment” in public health over the past decade may have hindered the DOH’s ability to prepare and respond to infectious disease outbreaks at the nursing homes. But Bill Hammond, the Empire Center’s senior fellow for health policy, said the information put out by the DOH Saturday was a small fraction of what it had requested.

To the extent the OAG has identified situations in which nursing home operators submitted false information to the state, the OAG should communicate those discrepancies to DOH so that we can pursue enforcement actions for violations of the Public Health Law . Nursing home operators must report accurate information to DOH or face civil or criminal penalties, and to date DOH has already fined numerous facilities for violating that obligation. The attorney general's initial findings of wrongdoing by certain nursing home operators are reprehensible and this is exactly why we asked the attorney general to undertake this investigation in the first place.

These alarming signs portend a difficult winter for seniors, which worries 81-year-old nursing home resident Bartley O'Hara, who said he is “vaccinated up to the eyeballs” and tracks coronavirus hospital trends as they "zoom up” for older adults, but remain flat for younger folks. For more than a century, the massive five-story red-brick building has stood on a narrow tree-lined residential street. Nothing about Cobble Hill Health Center, which serves older adults who are "chronically ill, or disabled, or debilitated," according to its website, suggests it would the nursing home in New York with the highest number of deaths presumably linked to the coronavirus epidemic.

Dr. Walid Michelen, chief medical officer for seven nonprofit nursing homes operated by the Archdiocese of New York, said Americans need to continue taking the pandemic seriously. Long said health care providers at Houston Methodist promote the booster “every chance we get.” But they don’t administer it to people hospitalized with COVID-19, who are generally told to wait three months after being infected to get it. Dr. Wesley Long, a pathologist at Houston Methodist in Texas, said his hospital has also seen an increase in COVID-19 admissions over the last couple of weeks — and many of the patients are seniors with other health problems. Some are admitted for different illnesses and test positive for COVID-19 in the hospital.