As expected, nothing new came from Andrew Cuomo’s testimony to the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
The focus continued to be on the March 25, 2020 advisory that told nursing homes they should not reject admission/readmission of a hospital discharge on the basis of a COVID test result. A causal link between the policy and deaths in nursing homes has never been established, so going round and round about “Who gave the order?” is a waste of time. False positive rates and persistent positivity issues make “must get negative test” a nonsensical policy regardless, especially because a positive result does not equal “sick and contagious.”
The “9,000” admissions/readmissions from hospitals to nursing homes cited by AP News in February 2021 and repeated during the hearing has been very effective in giving people a big number to be mad about. I contend it has always been meaningless, especially when it comes to NYC spring 2020, for at least four reasons:
- 9,000 is a statewide aggregate number divorced from a baseline.
- As far as I know, no daily time-series (or county-specific time-series) is available, which makes it impossible to see the “mechanics” of what occurred.
- NYC hospital discharges to skilled nursing facilities dropped 20% in 2020. The raw number decrease (around 16,000) is curiously close to the increase hospital inpatient deaths during the spring death spike and suggests many nursing home residents who went into hospitals didn’t make it out alive.
- It tells us nothing about how many nursing home residents total died, irrespective or cause or place, during the biggest mass casualty event in New York City history.
What’s fascinating is that very few (if any) states have reported how many nursing home residents total residents died in spring 2020. I have no idea, for example, how many Illinois nursing home residents total died in spring 2020. I tried to find out from the state health department, without success. There’s no federal dataset that reports the numbers either. Does the Select Subcommittee know that?
I understand the “why” of the energy around the March 25, 2020 advisory and Cuomo’s shell games: Deaths of nursing home residents are where the advocacy has been loudest. I respect those efforts but not the grandstanding and fake “accountability” that leverages the advocacy to advance the government’s core story about a spreading coronavirus that hit New York City like a bomb. Unfortunately, “The” Nursing Home Policy emphasis a) reduces both the event and the Hero/Villain storyline to a simplistic explanation, b) allows politicians on all sides to look like they’re doing something and holding other politicians accountable, and c) protects the Federal operations in New York City during the death spike
Anything that draws attention away from challenging the government’s fundamental claim about number of event casualties – and blaming the bulk of deaths on a *coronavirus* “hitting New York harder” – is exactly where the political continues to be and is why I can’t pretend the ball is moving down the field when it’s clearly not.
I’m still waiting for someone to compel either the state of New York or the federal government to explain how a “virus” can go off like bomb in the 5 boroughs (counties) of New York City and create more death in hospitals than the same of every other county in the state.1 ⬇️
I’m also interested in what accounts for the quiet 2020/21 winter in NYC nursing homes. Vaccines were working there but not everywhere else? There was a “pull forward effect” for NY state in summer/fall 2020, but not in NYC? That’s odd, no? ⬇️
Looking at weekly deaths in NYC nursing homes vs hospitals in the first sixth months of 2020, I fail to understand why there has been zero interest from the Select Subommittee (or anyone else) regarding what happened in NYC hospitals and in understanding who all managed the bodies. ⬇️
One does not need to be a statistician to see weekly deaths (all causes) in NYC and NY state (minus NYC) from January 2018 – December 2020 in hospitals and nursing homes and say, “This looks weird and probably isn’t because people weren’t required to have a negative PCR test before heading back to the congregate facility.” ⬇️
A good first-step in this mess would be for the state of New York to make every death certificate from the past five years (at least) public record so that these curves can be verify the all-cause death curves are legitimate.
I agree with Mary Pat Campbell that the Cuomo administration was & is engaged in much covering up (and in covering the covering up) and that the former Governor’s obvious attempts to position himself for future elected office should be stopped, if possible.2
You can hear my overall reaction to Cuomo’s testimony on Jeanne Ives’ Chicago radio show “The Real Story” last Sunday. (Segment starts at 22:15).
- All data in graphs from CDC WONDER ↩︎
- Mary Pat Campbell is doing a series that is worth reading for background on the saga: Part 1 and Part 2…with more to follow. We see some things differently but I respect her work, have learned much from her over the past four years, and recommend subscribing to her Substack. ↩︎
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