Report: Cuomo blocked Health Dept. from sharing data on nursing home deaths
NEW YORK - On March 19, 2020, Tracey Alvino's 76-year-old father, Daniel, entered Our Lady of Consolation Nursing Home in West Islip to rehab from neck surgery.
"He was the glue that kept my family together," Tracey said.
Daniel, a U.S. Army veteran, caught COVID-19 in that home and spent two weeks on a ventilator before Tracey had to decide to take him off of it.
"And that's something that will stay with me for the rest of my life," she said. "It was hell on earth, to be quite honest with you. My father died alone."
Daniel died on April 14.
Now the Voices for Seniors assistant director, Tracey represents families who also lost loved ones in nursing homes during this pandemic and did not mince words, Wednesday, after New York Times reporting revealed aides for Gov. Andrew Cuomo blocked the state's Health Department for months from sharing with the public and the state's Legislature just how many people died in New York's nursing homes during the pandemic.
"Look, Andrew Cuomo knowingly defrauded the people of New York and it's time that we impeach and imprison the governor," Tracey said.
The state initially reported 6,400 New Yorkers died in nursing homes but a report from the state's attorney general released earlier this year found the actual death toll may have soared as much as 50% higher, prompting a federal investigation into the governor's handling of data on nursing home deaths.
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The Eastern District of New York leads that investigation and declined to comment on it or the reporting by the New York Times to FOX 5 NY.
"The whole brouhaha here is overblown to the point where there are cynical suggestions offered for the plain and simple truth that the chamber wanted only to release accurate information that they believed was totally unassailable," Elkan Abramowitz, an attorney for the governor's office, wrote in a statement.
"Hearing that his aides engaged in this widespread coordinated effort to hide the nursing home deaths not only from the public but also from the Legislature," Tracey said. "I shouldn't be shocked at this point but I continue to become shocked."
The attorney general is also investigating the governor for alleged sexual misconduct and potentially devoting state resources to help him write his book.
The Assembly, meanwhile, has opened an impeachment inquiry.