Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is receiving new scrutiny for his nursing facility policy early in the coronavirus outbreak, notably his decree mandating nursing facilities to accept patients being discharged from the hospital.
This time, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, a bipartisan congressional group, is in charge of the inquiry.
In a letter delivered to Cuomo this week, the committee demanded that he turn over papers pertaining to the COVID policies of his administration by Tuesday, Oct. 17, and threatened to subpoena the former governor if he failed to do so. The records were first sought by the organization in May.
“The goal of the Select Subcommittee is to perform an after action report and postmortem of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the new letter reads, as reported by Gothamist. “By investigating the events that took place during the pandemic, we seek to learn what worked and what did not in an effort to better protect the nation in the future. Accordingly, the Select Subcommittee will not tolerate any further delay to its investigation.”
According to a study released in February 2021 by the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, the Cuomo administration significantly underestimated the number of COVID-19 deaths that occurred in nursing homes. In a subsequent report released in March 2022, state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli claimed that the Cuomo administration had undercounted the number of COVID-19 fatalities in nursing homes by at least 4,100.
Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, described the investigation as a “farce.” He said that the information sought by the committee “is with the state” and mentioned that it had previously been examined by several other government agencies.
“Once again, it’s unfortunate that some DC politicians are seeking to transparently weaponize people’s pain to advance a political agenda,” Azzopardi added.
