Pushing back against the narrative that its own policy led to more than 6,000 deaths among nursing home residents, the Cuomo Administration on Monday issued its own report, which drew a very different conclusion.

“Admission policies to nursing homes were not a significant factor in nursing home fatalities. And data suggests that nursing home quality is not a factor in mortality from Covid,” New York State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said.

At issue is a March 25 directive from the New York State Health Department requiring nursing homes to readmit residents who were treated at hospitals for COVID-19. Critics have seized on this policy as evidence the Cuomo Administration forced people with the virus back into facilities where the most vulnerable residents reside, resulting in massive infections and deaths.

Instead, the roughly 30-page report concludes that staff inside the nursing homes already brought in the virus, along with visitors, even though Cuomo banned all visits to nursing homes on March 12.

“Visitors were not initially barred. Visitors were barred about the middle of March. And by that time the virus was in the nursing homes. We never tested visitors. At that time we weren’t testing anyone. Testing was just starting,” Cuomo said at his Midtown office Monday.

But if the March 25 directive forcing patients back into homes wasn’t responsible for spreading the disease, we asked why the Cuomo Administration ended that policy in May.

“It was a recognition at that point that the nursing home population was very vulnerable,” Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa said at Cuomo’s coronavirus press briefing. “There were more beds. So we said out of an abundance of caution you must test negative before you are released.”

The report concludes that more than 37,000 nursing home staffers tested positive for coronavirus.

1199SEIU is the union representing those workers. In statement, 1199SEIU President George Gresham said, “Nursing home caregivers did everything they could to support the residents they know and love through this terrible pandemic. They did so at great physical and emotional cost, in many cases without adequate personal protective equipment and while being denied needed paid sick time. The 60,000 1199SEIU members who work in New York nursing homes have been raising their voices since the beginning of this pandemic to demand that both residents and workers be protected and respected.  They will continue to do so.”

The Cuomo administration later reversed the March 25 directive ordering COVID-19 patients back into nursing homes.

The numbers on COVID-19, at least in New York state, continue to trend downward. In the last 24 hours, 817 people were hospitalized due to the disease statewide, and just nine deaths. Other states are seeing big upticks.

Nevertheless Cuomo announced officially that the State Fair in Syracuse would be canceled this year even though it’s a big boon to the Central New York economy.

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