Melissa DeRosa, secretary of Governor Andrew Cuomo, tried to back down an earlier admission that the state purposely withheld mortality data from the COVID-19 nursing home, insisting on Friday that the governor’s office was “comprehensive and transparent” in responding to the Trump administration’s Justice Department record requests.
In a phone call with New York Democratic lawmakers on Thursday, DeRosa said the Cuomo administration feared that data on COVID-19 deaths could “be used against us” by the Justice Department in the midst of the federal investigation. initiated against four states regarding nursing deaths at home, including New York.
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“We were in a position where we were not sure whether what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we gave you, what we started to say, would be used against us while we were not sure if there would be an investigation,” DeRosa told lawmakers, according to the New York Post, which first released the information.
But on Friday, DeRosa sought to clarify her comments, saying she was “explaining that when we received the DOJ inquiry, we needed to temporarily void the Legislature’s request to deal with the federal request first.”
“We informed the houses about this at the time,” said DeRosa in a statement posted on Twitter by Rich Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Cuomo. “We were comprehensive and transparent in our responses to the DOJ, so we had to focus our resources immediately on the second wave and the distribution of the vaccine.
“As I said in a liaison with lawmakers, we could not respond to their request as quickly as anyone would like. But we are committed to being a better partner in the future, as we share the same goal of keeping New Yorkers as healthy as possible. during a pandemic. ”
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The statement did little to contain the anger of Republican lawmakers, some of whom are now calling for a criminal charge from Cuomo and senior officials for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
Congressman Tom Reed, RN.Y., told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Friday that he would file a criminal complaint with local and federal authorities over DeRosa’s arrest.
DeRosa’s bombastic admission also fueled fury over a previous discovery by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who said in late January that an investigation from her office revealed that the Cuomo administration underestimated the number of COVID- deaths 19 linked to nursing homes by up to 50%.
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On Wednesday, the state revealed that the death toll was actually 15,049 residents of nursing homes (nursing homes and nursing homes / adult care facilities) – almost 10,000 more than the Department of Health of the state reported on January 27, 2021 – according to a letter from State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker, sent to Senate Democrats.