By Jaz McKay
March 10, 2021
Today marks the one year anniversary of Covid-19 being named a pandemic, so let’s go back and review the deaths of at least 15,000 elderly residents of nursing home and adult-care facilities under the so called “leadership” of the Andrew Cuomo Administration.
Here’s how it all went down and how the New York Governor attempted to cover up what appears to be the most heinous case of premeditated serial murder, in US History.
March 25, 2020: The New York Department of Health issues an executive order directly from the governors office: “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”
April 3, 2020: Cuomo signs into law the 2020 state budget. The bill included a little noticed provision hidden deep inside that budget which granted nursing homes immunity from lawsuits that might arise out of COVID-19 deaths. The Guardian reports that The Greater New York Hospital Association, a lobbying arm for nursing homes and hospitals, in a now deleted social media post bragged about how the provision was the “gold standard” of legal immunity.
April 9, 2020: A nursing home in Brooklyn asks the Cuomo administration for permission to transfer its residents suspected of having or diagnosed with COVID-19 to the Javits Center, which had been turned into a federally-run field hospital, or to transfer the patients to the USS Comfort docked in Manhattan. Both the Javits Center and USS Comfort had been set up by President Donald Trump be used to relieve New York hospitals from overcrowding due to the pandemic. Both remained nearly entirely vacant throughout the entire time they were open. The Cuomo administration denied the request.
April 17, 2020: For the first time the state releases data on COVID-19 nursing home deaths, breaking down the data by individual facilities.
April 20, 2020: By this time it’s a well known fact that the most vulnerable among us are the elderly with serious health issues, which clearly describes the residents of nursing homes. During one of his Emmy Award winning press conference’s Cuomo claims “he is not aware” of his own health department’s March 25 directive. The New York Health Commissioner, Howard Zucker concedes to Cuomo and doubles-down, and again claims that all “the necessary precautions will be taken” to protect the residents forcibly moved into the population of the virus’s most vulnerable potential victims.
April 23, 2020: In another of his Emmy award winning press conference’s Cuomo states that nursing homes “don’t have the right to object” to the his March 25th directive, and further adds that nursing homes who cannot properly isolate COVID-19-positive residents must transfer those residents to another nursing home facility despite the Javits Center and USS Comfort remaining nearly vacant. It’s important to note that the directive never contained any such requirements.
April 29, 2020: The New York Post reports that New York state was allowing the staff in an upstate nursing home who had tested positive for COVID-19 but were asymptomatic to continue to work in the home among the resident’s who are the most vulnerable.
May 5: The state updates its nursing home COVID-19 death count to include presumed cases in addition to confirmed cases, increasing the total at the time by 1,700.
May 10: Under intense pressure, Cuomo rescinds the nursing home directive with an executive order and replaces it with a policy that states that nursing homes cannot accept residents without a negative COVID-19 test.
Mid-May: The Trump administration begins requiring nursing homes to provide data on COVID-19 deaths that occurred in the facilities as well as residents who were transferred to hospitals and then died. The policy, however, failed to require that retroactive data be made available, which fortunately for Cuomo, artificially decreased the true total fatality rate that was reported.
May 20: Cuomo, during one of his Emmy Award winning press conferences blames President Trump for New York nursing home deaths claiming his March 25 directive was issued pursuant to following federal CDC guidance. Politifact has debunked this claim and deemed it “mostly false.”
May 20: The New York Department of Health removes Governor Cuomo’s March 25 directive forcing Covid-19 patients into nursing homes from its website therefore removing it from public view.
May 22: The Associated Press reports that an astounding 4,500 COVID-19 patients were transferred from hospitals into nursing homes.
July 6: The state issues a report that attributes the high nursing home death toll to asymptomatic staff and visitors; not from the 4,500 COVID-19 positive patients forced into the elderly residents’ living quarters by Governor Cuomo’s directive. The report reveals 6,300 residents were transferred out of hospitals––only 100 more than the 6,200 nursing home residents reported to have died from COVID-19.
July 24: In one of his Emmy Award winning press conferences Cuomo downplays the state’s total COVID-19 death total and claims New York is 35th in the country in and repeatedly touts New York’s “low percentage” in comparison to other states.
Aug. 3: State legislatures press Zucker during a hearing about COVID-19 deaths in nursing home facilities who refused to provide the full tally of coronavirus deaths. In response, the Empire Center for Public Policy submitted a Freedom of Information Law or FOIL request seeking the nursing home coronavirus death data. It was then that the state quietly rolled back the immunity provided to nursing home operators in the state’s 2020 budget.
Aug. 12: The Associated Press reported that New York’s true nursing home death total could be over 11,000. At the time, the state had reported a only 6,600 deaths.
Aug. 18: Crown Publishing announces with great fanfare the publication of “American Crisis, Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic” by Andrew Cuomo. According to Crown, “In his own voice, Andrew Cuomo chronicles the ingenuity and sacrifice required of so many to fight the pandemic, sharing his personal reflections and the decision-making that shaped his policy, and offers his frank accounting and assessment of his interactions with the federal government and the White House, as well as other state and local political and health officials.”
Aug. 20: Cuomo dismisses concerns about a nursing home death undercount, saying during a radio interview, “If you die in the nursing home, it’s a nursing home death. If you die in the hospital, it’s called a hospital death.”
Aug. 26: The U.S. Department of Justice sends a letter and requests more data on New York nursing homes.
September 2: The Cuomo administration requests more time to respond to their letter seeking data.
Sept. 3: Then-President Donald Trump attacks Cuomo for the state’s nursing home death count, citing the 11,000 number reported by the Associated Press the month before.
Sept. 18: The Empire Center files a lawsuit seeking the nursing home data after the state failed to comply with the Center’s August 3rd FOIL request.
Sep. 30: After facing increased scrutiny, Cuomo, during a future Emmy Award winning press conference accuses his critics of “politicizing people’s deaths.”
Oct. 12: When questioned, Zucker again refused to articulate the actual total number of deaths and instead, reiterated that the state would release the information once “all the data is accurate.”
Oct. 13: Crown Publishing releases: “American Crisis, Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic” a book, supposedly written by Andrew Cuomo. In it Cuomo emphasized the importance of confronting fear: “The questions are what do you do with the fear and would you succumb to it,” he wrote. “I would not allow the fear to control me. The fear kept my adrenaline high and that was a positive. But I would not let the fear be a negative, and I would not spread it. Fear is a virus also.”
Oct. 22: It’s announced that Cuomo’s book about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has sold more than 11,800 copies since its release, enough to land a coveted spot on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
Oct. 28: The DOJ announced that it is expanding its inquiry into New York because it’s the only state in the country not to include residents who had transferred to hospitals as part of its nursing home COVID-19 death totals.
Nov. 20: The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announces Andrew Cuomo has won its Founders Emmy Award, citing “his effective use of television during the pandemic” President and CEO of the academy, Bruce L. Paisner said, “The Governor’s 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure.”
Jan. 28: New York Attorney General Letitia James releases a report on nursing homes during the pandemic that estimates that the state is undercounting COVID-19 deaths among nursing home and long-term care facility residents by as much as 50%. That evening, Zucker releases a statement revealing the state’s nursing home death tally is 12,473 while at the same time reporting just 8,700 deaths on the Department of Health website.
Feb. 3: A state judge rules the state illegally withheld the information requested in the Empire Center’s FOIL request, handing the organization a victory in its September 18 lawsuit.
Feb 6: The state Department of Health website is finally updated to reflect nursing home deaths that occurred in hospitals, bringing the total deaths count to 13,163.
Feb. 10: In a closed door meeting, the Cuomo administration meets with Democratic lawmakers who later release a letter provided by the administration that contained answers to the questions legislators submitted to the administration back in August. The letter stated the total adult-care facility and nursing home COVID-19 death toll rose to 15,049 as of February 9.
February 11, 2021: It’s reveled that during the February 10 closed door meeting, Cuomo’s Secretary, Melissa DeRosa, apologized for stonewalling Democratic legislators claimed “the DOJ probe” was the cause for delay in providing the information requested six months prior. She said the administration “froze” when it received the inquiry letter and that they feared that releasing the information would be “used against us.”
February 12, 2021: DeRosa releases a statement defending her remarks, stating: “As I said on a call with legislators, we could not fulfill their request as quickly as anyone would have liked.”
February 15, 2021: Cuomo directly addresses the scandal for the first time and admits that his administration created an information “void” by not releasing nursing home death data more quickly. Cuomo never actually apologized for the delay, nor did he apologize to the families of the 15,000+ who died.
February 16, 2021: Assembly members, including Ron Kim, a frequent critic of Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic, circulate a letter seeking to strip Cuomo of his emergency powers and accusing him of obstruction of justice. The Post publishes a story regarding the letter.
February 17, 2021: Cuomo then attacks Kim and the Post during a press conference over the Assembly letter and the Post’s story about the letter and the article breaking the news about DeRosa’s comments. According to Kim, Cuomo then told him, “You will be destroyed.”
February 22, 2021: Democratic Committee members introduce a resolution to formally censure Cuomo over his handling of nursing homes and for allegedly covering up the true number of nursing home fatalities.
March 4, 2021: Reports surface revealing Cuomo’s aides edited the July report on nursing home deaths to remove the higher death toll included in the first draft. According to health officials, the administration made the changes to downplay the impact of the March 25 directive on nursing home deaths to avoid culpability.
March 8, 2021: Crown Publishing announces the coronavirus memoir written by Cuomo “halting promotion” and has no plans to reprint the book in paperback. Crown had promoted the book as Cuomo recounting the “ingenuity and sacrifice required of so many to fight the pandemic, sharing his personal reflections on forty years in government and the decision-making that shaped his political policy.”
As of today it’s still not clear if The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences will take back the governors Emmy Award or not. However, Democratic New York City Councilman Robert Holden said that accusations against the embattled governor should show the Emmy organization he no longer deserves the honor.
“We now know that his TV appearances and clout were used to mislead the public regarding how their loved ones died,” Holden wrote in a letter to the Academy. “Please rescind the Governor’s award immediately, as his actions have been an insult to every New Yorker who lost a loved one during this terrible pandemic.”
Losing the Founders Award amid controversy is not without precedent. Actor Kevin Spacey was stripped of the honor in 2017 after being accused of trying to seduce actor Anthony Rapp. The allegation dated back 30 years, when Rapp was a minor.
Disgraced comedian, actor, and convicted sex offender Bill Cosby has not had his multiple Emmy awards rescinded, but the Academy did remove his name from its website.
The Academy has not responded to a request for comment by The Deplorable Patriot on whether Gov. Cuomo faces the possibility of losing his Emmy. If that changes we’ll update this article.
Author: Jaz McKay is a long time veteran of Talk Radio, a story teller, a public speaker, an activist, and is the editor and publisher of The Deplorable Patriot website. He lives in Bakersfield, California with his wife and their dog and two cats. He’s been called the Uncommon Voice of the Common Man and is a Super Spreader of the Truth.
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