An audit released by the New York State Comptroller’s Office says the public was misled at “the highest level” through suppression of facts about nursing home deaths during the COVID Pandemic.
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s report says the state was unprepared for an outbreak of infectious disease in nursing homes, and there was a lack of funding that forced the health department to operate without the staff or information needed to control the spread of COVID. The auditors also found the state “did not provide the public with accurate COVID death counts in nursing homes.” It says the Health Department began undercounting those deaths as former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office took control of the information going out to the public.
The audit estimated nursing home deaths from the pandemic were under-reported by as much as 50 percent, and the actual number of deaths is still uncertain.