Gov. Kathy Hochul, in one of her first actions as the state’s new leader, acknowledged 12,000 more Covid-19 deaths in New York than her predecessor did, offering some closure for families and encouraging trust in her leadership.
Gov. Kathy Hochul last week acknowledged a higher number of Covid-19 deaths among nursing home residents than former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo did.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo adopted a different counting standard from that used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Purposely or not, it had the effect of showing New York with a lower mortality rate than the federal figures showed, creating confusion and sowing political doubts that helped to weaken Cuomo.
On Tuesday, Hochul changed that policy. Inserting a bulleted item into the state’s daily Covid-19 data tracking release, she included the CDC standard.
The newly-minted governor told MSNBC that her administration is releasing “more data than had been released before publicly” so the public will know the nursing home deaths and hospital deaths are “consistent” with the CDC. That will allow more accurate comparisons among states.
Under the Cuomo policy, the number of nursing home deaths excluded those who contracted Covid-19 in a nursing home but died elsewhere, such as a hospital. The method suggested a lower death rate in nursing homes.
But nursing homes were only one part of the problem. More broadly, the state’s mortality count excluded people who died of Covid-19 at home or in hospices or places such as prisons and group homes.
