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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today that nursing homes are privately run facilities and while the state has basic regulations, they do not get into fine details of what these facilities do and what the policy of communication is.
“I don’t know what else we could release beyond number of deaths per nursing home that doesn’t violate healthcare privacy,” Cuomo said.
If there is a complaint that a nursing home is non-responsive “than we will talk to the nursing home and follow up,” he added.
When asked if nursing homes were underreporting, Cuomo said “I don’t know if that’s what it is.”
“The numbers are going to come out,” he said adding any home “that thinks they’re gonna sit there and people are not gonna figure out how many people passed away in that nursing home they’re kidding themselves.”
The governor has spoken to a number of nursing homes and “more than anything” they are overwhelmed and staff are getting sick. The residents are also under tremendous pressure because they haven’t had visitors, he said.
He doesn’t think anything is nefarious about reporting, but that it’s just the dynamic.
By the numbers: Yesterday the state released data showing there have been 1,109 confirmed Covid-19 deaths and presumed deaths from Covid-19 in 68 long-term care nursing home facilities in New York.
However, the state did not provide a breakdown of how many were “presumed” deaths but indicated the data would be separated in future updates.
The data is also incomplete because, for “privacy purposes,” facilities with less than five deaths have been excluded from reporting the results, according to the state website.
