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The United States surpasses 500,000 COVID-19 deaths.
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Opinion: Cuomo hid covid-19 data. But it was worse than just a coverup.
Opinion by Marc A. Thiessen Feb. 17, 2021 WASHINGTON POST
You’ve heard the expression that the coverup is worse than the crime? Well, in the case of New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), the opposite might be true.
Cuomo is under bipartisan fire after an aide admitted that his administration deliberately delayed releasing information showing the true extent of covid-19 deaths in New York nursing homes, out of fears, according to the aide, that the information “was going to be used against us.”
Stonewalling the Justice Department is bad enough, but Cuomo did something even worse: His administration provided inaccurate data to public health officials in real time, at the beginning of the crisis, when government scientists were desperately trying to figure out how the virus was spreading, who was most vulnerable and how to stop it. Instead of meeting its obligation to provide accurate information, the Cuomo administration provided incomplete data about nursing home deaths apparently because he feared real data would hurt him politically. That is like providing false intelligence to battlefield commanders about the location of the enemy in a time of war.
Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic
On March 25, Cuomo’s health department ordered nursing homes to accept known or suspected covid-19 hospital patients, prohibiting facilities from requiring tests to see whether they were infectious. After a firestorm erupted, on May 3, his administration suddenly changed the way it reported nursing home covid deaths — releasing only the number of deaths that took place inside nursing homes, and not counting those who died after being taken to hospitals. According to a senior Justice Department official, the administration withheld data on private nursing home deaths in New York until the final days of the Trump administration. As a result, the federal government was given bad data about the spread of the pandemic in New York. read more
Opinion by Marc A. Thiessen Feb. 17, 2021 WASHINGTON POST
You’ve heard the expression that the coverup is worse than the crime? Well, in the case of New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), the opposite might be true.
Cuomo is under bipartisan fire after an aide admitted that his administration deliberately delayed releasing information showing the true extent of covid-19 deaths in New York nursing homes, out of fears, according to the aide, that the information “was going to be used against us.”
Stonewalling the Justice Department is bad enough, but Cuomo did something even worse: His administration provided inaccurate data to public health officials in real time, at the beginning of the crisis, when government scientists were desperately trying to figure out how the virus was spreading, who was most vulnerable and how to stop it. Instead of meeting its obligation to provide accurate information, the Cuomo administration provided incomplete data about nursing home deaths apparently because he feared real data would hurt him politically. That is like providing false intelligence to battlefield commanders about the location of the enemy in a time of war.
Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic
On March 25, Cuomo’s health department ordered nursing homes to accept known or suspected covid-19 hospital patients, prohibiting facilities from requiring tests to see whether they were infectious. After a firestorm erupted, on May 3, his administration suddenly changed the way it reported nursing home covid deaths — releasing only the number of deaths that took place inside nursing homes, and not counting those who died after being taken to hospitals. According to a senior Justice Department official, the administration withheld data on private nursing home deaths in New York until the final days of the Trump administration. As a result, the federal government was given bad data about the spread of the pandemic in New York. read more
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