New Alliance, Old Scandal: The COVID Failure Haunting Hochul

Authored by J.T. Young via RealClearPolitics,

Recently Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New York was joining 14 other states in a “nonpartisan initiative” (though all 15 states have Democratic governors) called the Governors Public Health Alliance, a “coordinating hub for governors and their public health leaders and a unified, cross-state liaison with the global health community. The Alliance also provides a platform for governors to exchange best practices, align policies, and coordinate on issues like vaccine access, emergency response and health security.” 

Despite claiming the GPHA is “nonpartisan,” Hochul’s press release is anything but: “From undermining vaccine access and abortion rights to slashing billions in Medicaid funding from those in need, the federal government is wreaking havoc on public health and the institutions we rely on.” 

Hochul’s announcement also states: “This new Alliance builds on New York’s ongoing work to protect access to public health and scientific information amidst ongoing attacks from the federal government.” 

Finally, the press release burnishes GPHA’s credentials by stating: “The Alliance is advised by leading public health experts, including former CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen,” as well as others. 

All these platitudes of partisanship and self-promotion are par-for-the-course for a governor seeking reelection. However, for New York in general, and Hochul in particular, they are the height of hypocrisy. 

By harping on being above politics, adhering to best health care practices, promoting vaccines, protecting public health, relying on scientific information, and following CDC expertise, Hochul’s announcement resurrects the ignominious role New York played during the pandemic: specifically, the Cuomo-Hochul administration’s decision to admit potentially COVID-positive patients into the state’s nursing homes – among the worst decisions made by any state during the pandemic. 

In doing what it unconscionably did, the Cuomo-Hochul administration violated everything its press release on the GPHA is now touting. It did so in March 2020. Over the following months, it sought to cover up the number of deaths its horrendous policy caused. Then after Hochul became governor, following Cuomo’s resignation in disgrace (and looming conviction on sexual harassment), the Hochul administration stonewalled an investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic – doing so for months. Even after the Hochul administration delivered documents, it used every means to ensure it failed to deliver the real information the subcommittee sought. 

For those who may have forgotten exactly how bad New York’s actions were regarding nursing homes during the pandemic, the Select Subcommittee summed it up in its Dec. 2, 2024, final report: “Age and comorbidities were the most important risk factor for predicting hospitalization and death from COVID-19. This fact was known by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the earliest days of the pandemic. Despite knowing the threat COVID-19 posed to the elderly, the Cuomo administration issued the March 25 directive that ordered potentially COVID-positive nursing home residents be admitted or readmitted to a nursing home and prohibited testing.”

Sadly, the predictable results from such a disastrous policy occurred: Well over 15,000 nursing home patients died in and out facilities. Of course, the Cuomo administration attempted to count far fewer. The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity found “A comprehensive new analysis indicates that the Cuomo administration undercounted nursing home deaths by 68%.”

The FREOPP report stated: “While New York was not counting the number of long-term care residents who died of COVID-19 in hospitals, the state appeared to be outperforming other states along the Acela Corridor. But after accounting for such residents who died in hospitals, New York experienced nursing home and assisted living fatalities comparable to states such as Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, who were among the hardest hit. This is in part due to policy decisions by those states that discharged seniors with active COVID-19 infections from hospitals to LTC facilities.” 

Amazingly, Cuomo was touting New York’s low death rate in its nursing homes: “You look at the nursing home deaths in this state,” Cuomo said. “Do you know what number we are by percentage before you made that statement? We’re No. 46 out of 50 states, and we had the worst problem, and we’re 46th in terms of percentage of deaths in nursing homes.”

Bad as cause and outcome were, the Cuomo-Hochul administration compounded it, trying to hide the excessive deaths by fudging the numbers. Said the Select Committee report: “The Cuomo Administration sought to cover-up the impact of the March 25 Directive by continually altering the methodology of how nursing home fatalities were counted and by repeatedly asserting the March 25 Directive followed federal guidance …” Needless to say, the March 25 directive did not follow either CMS or CDC guidance. 

Apologists wishing to sweep these actions to the past or to Cuomo alone should be aware that the story did not stop there. 

After Hochul became governor following Cuomo’s August 2021 resignation, her administration was repeatedly asked for information regarding the March 25 Directive and its “cover-up.” According to the Select Subcommittee report, “Kathy Hochul promised to be ‘fully transparent’ regarding COVID-19 in nursing homes.”

In understatement, the Select Subcommittee’s report stated that Hochul’s administration “was not fully transparent regarding the former-Cuomo Administration’s failures.” Instead, it took three letters, eight months, and a subpoena before any information was delivered. Even then, the documents were “incomplete and substantially redacted – often, without apparent legal basis. Further, there are responsive documents the Select Subcommittee knows exist – through public reporting and witness testimony – that were not included…”

Hochul’s role in the initial New York nursing home directive and “cover-up” is unknown. Perhaps without the “substantial” redactions and with the “withheld thousands of pages of responsive documents pursuant to tenuous legal privileges,” things would be more clear. But her role since taking office is quite clear: to bury the past.

All of this is supremely hypocritical now that Hochul is using COVID, vaccines, and following federal guidance in her announcement for a transparently political stunt. For five years, two New York administrations have tried to hide what occurred in that state’s nursing homes – one of the pandemic’s worst scandals. And as a capper, “two other states … had orders similar to New York’s March 25 Directive.” Those states were New Jersey and Pennsylvania; both are also in the new GPHA. 

In their haste to play politics, these governors should have taken a closer look at history – their own pandemic histories. Gov. Hochul should also be hoping New York voters do not take close look at a scandal that has still not been fully revealed.