The Governor of the American state of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said that the government agencies accountable to him did not try to hide information about deaths due to the new type of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, although it was really out of time to report the number of people who died in nursing homes in Last year. He touched on this topic in a speech that was broadcast on the governor’s website.
Cuomo stressed that authorities reported all deaths in nursing homes as quickly as possible. However, he admitted, their efforts were not enough, and a vacuum appeared, which was used by political opponents. The Governor stressed that he is taking responsibility for what happened.
As reminded by CNN, a week earlier, a number of state legislators – mostly Republicans – demanded Cuomo’s resignation. They suspected his malicious intent after learning that the governor’s office did not provide real data on mortality in nursing homes. At the same time, open information was given with a noticeable understatement – sometimes there were two times less deaths than in reality.
As reported last summer, a controversial decision by Cuomo could have led to an increase in the number of deaths: then, recovering from COVID-19 patients began to be transferred from hospitals back to institutions for the elderly.