Cuomo aides knew his nursing home mandate would be great debacle, helped gov edit report that deflated deaths, House COVID panel finds
Gov.Andrew Cuomo allegedly himself “edited” a state report that deflated New York’s COVID-19 death toll in nursing homes — which his top aides pressured health officials into releasing, despite knowing the issue would turn into a “great debacle,” according to the stunning results of an investigation by a US House committee.Cuomo “absolutely” signed off on the disastrous directive early in the pandemic forcing coronavirus patients back into nursing homes — leading to as many as 9,000 excess COVID deaths — the final congressional report and witness testimonies exclusively obtained by The Post show.The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic conducted the probe and majority staff released the findings ahead of a public hearing with the 66-year-old ex-governor on Tuesday, charging his office with making several “demonstrably false” statements and engaging in a “cover-up.”“This is going to be the great debacle in the history books,” wrote Cuomo aide Stephanie Benton in a June 7, 2020, email about the nursing home death count.
“Don’t u [sic] see how bad this is? Or do we admit error and give up?”“Within hours” of the email, New York health commissioner Dr.Howard Zucker received “talking points” that were used to draft the audit on the nursing home deaths, which was released on July 6 and excluded out-of-facility fatalities.The three-term Democrat and his inner circle “reviewed” and “edited” the state Department of Health report that vastly undercounted the fatalities, according to the documents.According to Cuomo’s then-director of operations, Dr.
Jim Malatras, who served as a member of the governor’s COVID task force, top aide Melissa DeRosa “laid out the points that she wanted to have touched upon in the report.”“The report that I was editing had the total number of fatalities in all the charts until Ms.DeRosa intervened,” Malatras testified to the subcommittee.
“She was constantly edit...