New York Governor Andrew Cuomo isn’t just responsible for China Virus-related deaths of thousands of nursing home patients. The same policy that shoved infected individuals into nursing homes also put them into group homes for the developmentally disabled.
The news of those deaths, more than 500, flew under the leftist media’s radar despite a release from New York Senate Republicans in late February. Fox News reported the facts yesterday.
The release suggests that Cuomo’s policy caused a statewide mini-pandemic in those facilities that sickened more than 20 percent of more than 30,000 residents.
Another Order That Killed
Frighteningly, Cuomo still hasn’t rescinded the order, Fox reported, and even worse, it blocks the homes from testing residents who have been hospitalized.
“No individual shall be denied re-admission or admission to a Certified Residential Facility based solely on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19,” the order says:
Directive PDF 1Providers of Certified Residential Facilities are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized individual, who is determined medically stable, to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.
The death toll: 552 have died with the China Virus, the state’s Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) told Fox News.
But that’s only the number of dead:
More than 6,900 people out of the more than 34,552 who live in such resident homes have been infected with the virus, according to OPWDD.
“These group homes were required to have a process in place to expedite the return of asymptomatic residents from the hospital, who were deemed appropriate for return to their OPWDD certified residence,” an OPWDD spokeswoman told Fox News:
“In other words, OPWDD providers could accept individuals only if they could safely accommodate them in the group home.”
The statement also noted that people “who could not be safely accommodated either remained at the hospital or were served in one of the over 100 temporary sites established for COVID-19 recovery efforts in partnership with OPWDD provider agencies.”
Maybe but that doesn’t help the 552 deceased victims or the nearly 7,000 infected ones.
A study of individuals in group homes reported an infection rate that was four times that of the state population. The fatality rate was double.
GOP Questions
GOP members of the state Senate want to know what’s going on, and wrote to the OPWDD.
Said Senator Michael Martucci, the ranking member of the disabilities committee:
I am deeply concerned that the April 10th order from OPWDD needlessly put some of our most vulnerable citizens in harm’s way. Close on the heels of the deadly nursing home order from the Department of Health (DOH), this order appears both dangerous and tone deaf. Transparency has been a major failing of this administration at all levels. I’m hopeful that they have finally learned their lesson and will provide the information we are requesting and provide it quickly.
Senator James Tedisco was more blunt:
First, the Cuomo Administration covered up the deaths of thousands of New Yorkers in state-regulated nursing homes, and now, thanks to the efforts of the Attorney General, the Empire Center and disability rights advocates, we’ve been made aware of another potential cover-up impacting the health and well-being of thousands of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The families of our most vulnerable citizens deserve full transparency from the Cuomo Administration and they need it now.
Nursing-home Scandal
Cuomo is also under fire for falsely reporting nursing-home deaths after his order to push China Virus patients into those facilities.
In a report published in July, Cuomo and his underlings reported that a little more than 6,000 people had died. The real number surpassed 9,000.
When the New York Times uncovered Cuomo’s monkeyshines with the virus math, Crown Publishing Group stopped publicizing Cuomo’s “leadership lessons” book. The publisher removed the book from its website, and says it won’t reprint it.
The number of nursing-home deaths now is more than 15,000, the Times reported.
