The governor’s top aide is admitting that the Cuomo administration covered up the number of nursing home deaths from the coronavirus last year in order to avoid prosecution by the Trump administration.
Sources tell NY1 that Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa made the revelation to Democratic state lawmakers in a video conference call to explain why the administration withheld basic information about nursing home deaths.
Sources say that DeRosa claimed that the administration was worried that the Justice Department would prosecute New York for obstruction if officials revealed the true numbers. Sources says she apologized for the decision.
The story was first reported by the New York Post. It comes on top of a new Associated Press report which found that the Cuomo administration downplayed how many COVID-19 patients had been transferred back from hospitals to nursing homes.
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Cuomo senior advisor Rich Azzopardi responded to the Post report with a statement he posted to Twitter Thursday night.
A scathing report issued by state Attorney General Letitia James earlier this month found that the state had heavily misrepresented the number of COVID-19 nursing home deaths from 8,500 to the true number, which is more than 15,000.