State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an audit Tuesday that says former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s health department drastically undercounted COVID-19 nursing home deaths.

The audit found health department officials failed to report about 4,100 deaths between April 2020 and February 2021. 

At certain points of the pandemic, the death toll was undercounted by as much as 50%, the audit found.

The report also found the department was unprepared to respond to infectious disease outbreaks in nursing homes.

The actual number of nursing home residents who died from COVID is still uncertain. 

“Our audit findings are extremely troubling,” state DiNapoli said in a statement. “The public was misled by those at the highest level of state government through distortion and suppression of the facts when New Yorkers deserved the truth.

The undercounting of deaths was first revealed in a report released last year by state Attorney General Letitia James.

"I am grateful to Comptroller DiNapoli for bringing much-needed transparency to this critical issue,” James said in a statement Tuesday.

The health department responded to the audit saying any criticisms related to transparency should be directed at former Gov. Cuomo's administration, not Department of Health personnel.

Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for Cuomo, accused the comptroller of playing politics, saying, "As the number of out-of -facility deaths were reported last January, this is not news."