Covid-19: the governor of New York accused of falsifying the number of deaths in retirement homes

EPIDEMIC – Affected by charges of sexual harassment, Andrew Cuomo is also suspected of having lowered the death toll in nursing homes in New York State. Its management of the health crisis is now widely criticized.

It is an understatement to say that the post of Andrew Cuomo, 63 years old and governor of the State of New York since 2011, is today very threatened. After accusations of sexual harassment by three different women, who have not (yet) prompted him to resign, the governor is now the subject of suspicion about his handling of the epidemic. 

Fear of prosecution by the Trump administration

According to information from the New York Times , Andrew Cuomo would have downgraded the death toll of Covid-19 in nursing homes by asking his staff not to include in the official report residents who had died of the disease in the hospital. In June, when this famous report came out, more than 9,000 people staying in a retirement home had died of Covid-19. This was not the case in the official balance sheet, which then counted half as many deaths in these establishments. According to the newspaper, this “extraordinary intervention” occurred when the governor was preparing to write a book on his management of the health crisis. “I am thinking of writing a book about what we have been through”, then declared the politician, four days after the publication of the report.

It wasn’t until New York attorney general Letitia James revealed at the end of January that deaths had been grossly underestimated in nursing homes that Andrew Cuomo finally agreed to release official mortality data affecting these establishments. The Democrat defended himself by explaining that he had hidden the reality of the figures “for fear of a politically motivated investigation by the Trump administration”. However, the New York Times reveals that this cover-up took place months before the federal authorities called to account the various states in the country.

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