The damning attorney general’s report that showed Governor Andrew Cuomo and other officials downplayed the deadly impact of COVID-19 on New York’s nursing homes finally got the state health commissioner in trouble on Thursday to reveal the total number of resident deaths.
In a defensive statement of almost 1,700 words, Dr. Howard Zucker released figures that put the count of confirmed and presumed deaths in nursing homes and hospitals at 12,743 on January 19.
The impressive figure is only slightly less than the 13,000 suggested by the report issued by Attorney General Letitia James earlier in the day.
That report said that data from 62 nursing homes showed that the death toll from residents was 56 percent higher than that publicly recognized by the Department of Health.
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“The report by the New York State Attorney General’s Office is clear that there was no underestimation of the total death toll in this pandemic that occurs once every century,” said Zucker.
“The word ‘sub-count’ implies that there are more total fatalities than have been reported; this is factually wrong.”
Prior to Zucker’s reluctant announcement, the DOH official count of deaths in nursing homes by COVID-19 included only residents who actually died in nursing homes – and not anyone who died in a hospital during treatment.
The previous Thursday, the DOH website estimated that number at 8,740, citing current data from the day before.
“DOH data audited to date shows that from March 1, 2020 to January 19, 2021, 9,786 confirmed fatalities were associated with residents of qualified nursing units, including 5,957 deaths in nursing units and 3,829 within a hospital. “said Zucker.
“When 2,957 presumed deaths in COVID nursing homes – those deaths that occurred when tests were scarce and the lack of confirmed evidence that the deceased had COVID – are included, the state’s share in the deaths of individuals who died in nursing homes or hospitals after the transfer is 29.8% of the total number of confirmed and presumed deaths in the state of New York listed by the CDC. “
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Zucker’s statement does not include the total of these various death counts.
DOH was facing calls to release the total death toll from The Post, lawmakers on both sides of the corridor and the Empire Center for Public Policy, which filed a lawsuit under the state’s Freedom of Information Act in September.
On Monday, the chairman of the state Senate Investigations Committee, James Skoufis (D-Newburgh), even threatened to issue a subpoena, calling it “frankly insulting … that, six months later, the DOH continues to block us on basic issues “.
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Zucker also said that James’ report “found no evidence” that a controversial March 25 DOH guideline for nursing homes to admit patients with coronavirus “resulted in additional deaths in nursing homes”.
However, one of the findings listed in the James report says in full: “Government guidance requiring admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes may have put residents at greater risk of damage to some facilities and may have obscured the data available to assess that risk. “
More than 6,300 “COVID-positive residents” were admitted to nursing homes before Cuomo rescinded the policy in May, according to a July DOH report that attributed the spread of the coronavirus to infected, but asymptomatic workers.