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By: Jared Evan
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo personally edited a state report that drastically downplayed the COVID-19 death toll in nursing homes—manipulating the data to shield his administration from scrutiny, according to a bombshell investigation by a U.S. House committee.
Cuomo faced a House Select Committee on Tuesday, and several highlights are seen in this article
Cuomo’s actions contributed to as many as 9,000 excess deaths, revealing a shocking disregard for the lives of the state’s most vulnerable residents.
As the New York Post reports, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic unveiled findings from their investigation, showing Cuomo and his top aides pressured health officials to release a skewed report early in the pandemic. Despite knowing the severity of the issue, Cuomo’s team actively worked to cover it up. A June 2020 email from Cuomo aide Stephanie Benton highlights this deceit, warning, “This is going to be the great debacle in the history books… Or do we admit error and give up?”
The investigation found that Cuomo’s office signed off on the now-infamous directive that forced nursing homes to admit COVID-positive patients. This move, which health experts warned against, likely led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. According to testimony obtained by the Post, Cuomo and his closest advisers, including aide Melissa DeRosa, “reviewed” and “edited” the state Department of Health’s report, specifically removing out-of-facility deaths from the count. Cuomo’s goal? To minimize the public outrage over his administration’s catastrophic handling of nursing home residents.
Former Director of Operations Jim Malatras testified that DeRosa was deeply involved in manipulating the language of the report, and Cuomo himself was constantly making edits. “She was constantly editing it, Mr. Cuomo was editing it,” Malatras told the subcommittee. Their changes made the report less definitive and less damning—deliberately hiding the true scale of the tragedy.
Shockingly, the report excluded nearly half of the nursing home deaths. According to an earlier audit by New York Attorney General Letitia James, Cuomo’s administration had deflated the fatality count by more than 50%. This falsification went unchecked for nearly a year while Cuomo publicly claimed full transparency.
The former governor, who enjoyed glowing media coverage and even won an Emmy for his pandemic briefings, maintained during his testimony that the directive was based on federal guidance. He repeatedly blamed federal and state health officials, attempting to deflect responsibility. “We could not have been more transparent,” Cuomo said, accusing both Republican and Democratic committee staff of promoting a “conspiracy theory.”
However, the facts tell a different story. Former New York health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker testified that the governor’s office “absolutely” signed off on the deadly March 2020 directive. Additionally, the investigation uncovered that Cuomo was fully aware of the risks, with former White House adviser Jared Kushner recalling Cuomo saying the policy would be “like fire through dry grass.”
By forcing nursing homes to accept COVID patients, Cuomo and his administration recklessly endangered elderly residents who were already at high risk. The New York Post revealed that more than 9,000 recovering COVID-19 patients were admitted to nursing homes without being tested, turning these facilities into breeding grounds for the virus. This disastrous decision directly contributed to the death of at least 15,000 nursing home residents, a number Cuomo’s administration worked hard to hide.
Cuomo’s defense during the investigation was thin, at best. He and DeRosa claimed ignorance about the decision to include COVID-positive patients in nursing homes, blaming midlevel staff for drafting the order.
