Cuomo got paid 4 million dollars to write his COVID novel while using tax dollars to make his staff edit it as they were editing the nursing home data

 

New York Times

 As the coronavirus subsided in New York last year, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had begun pitching a book proposal that would center on his image as a hero of the pandemic. But by early last summer, both his book and image had hit a critical juncture.

Mr. Cuomo leaned on his top aide, Melissa DeRosa, for assistance. She attended video meetings with publishers, and helped him edit early drafts of the book. But there was also another, more pressing edit underway at the same time.

An impending Health Department report threatened to disclose a far higher number of nursing home deaths related to the coronavirus than the Cuomo administration had previously made public. Ms. DeRosa and other top aides expressed concern about the higher death toll, and, after their intervention, the number — which had appeared in the second sentence of the report — was removed from the final version.

The revisions occurred as the governor was on the brink of a huge payoff: a book deal that ended with a high offer of more than $4 million, according to people with knowledge of the book’s bidding process.

A New York Times examination of the development of Mr. Cuomo’s lucrative book deal revealed how it overlapped with the move by his most senior aides to reshape a report about nursing home deaths in a way that insulated the governor from criticism and burnished his image.

Mr. Cuomo also utilized the resources of his office — from his inner circle to far more junior personnel — to help with the manuscript. In late June and early July, for example, a top aide to the governor, Stephanie Benton, twice asked assistants to print portions of the draft of the book, and deliver them to Mr. Cuomo at the Executive Mansion in Albany, where he lives.

One of Ms. Benton’s directives came on June 27, the same day that Ms. DeRosa convened an impromptu teleconference with several other top advisers to discuss the Health Department draft report.

On Wednesday, Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to the governor, rejected any link between Mr. Cuomo’s book and the Health Department report.

“There is no connection between the report and this outside project, period,” Mr. Azzopardi said. “And any suggestion otherwise is just wrong.”

AG James is investigating Governor Cuomo's nursing homes data

 

AG.NY. Gov

Investigations Reveal DOH Publicly Reported Data Undercounted COVID-19 Deaths
and Many Nursing Homes Failed to Comply with Critical Infection Control Policies

AG Conducting Ongoing Investigations into More Than 20 Facilities

NEW YORK – Attorney General Letitia James today released a report on her office’s ongoing investigations into nursing homes’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since March, Attorney General James has been investigating nursing homes throughout New York state based on allegations of patient neglect and other concerning conduct that may have jeopardized the health and safety of residents and employees.

Among those findings were that a larger number of nursing home residents died from COVID-19 than the New York State Department of Health’s (DOH) published nursing home data reflected and may have been undercounted by as much as 50 percent. The investigations also revealed that nursing homes’ lack of compliance with infection control protocols put residents at increased risk of harm, and facilities that had lower pre-pandemic staffing ratings had higher COVID-19 fatality rates. Based on these findings and subsequent investigation, Attorney General James is conducting ongoing investigations into more than 20 nursing homes whose reported conduct during the first wave of the pandemic presented particular concern.

“As the pandemic and our investigations continue, it is imperative that we understand why the residents of nursing homes in New York unnecessarily suffered at such an alarming rate,” said Attorney General James. “While we cannot bring back the individuals we lost to this crisis, this report seeks to offer transparency that the public deserves and to spur increased action to protect our most vulnerable residents. Nursing homes residents and workers deserve to live and work in safe environments, and I will continue to work hard to safeguard this basic right during this precarious time.”

Cuomo denies his own doctrine on nursing homes

 

Finger Lakes Daily News  

This is America's pandemic sweetheart talking here. 

"The premise of your question is factually wrong"

 "We never needed nursing home beds, we had hospital beds. We had extra beds at Javits. It just never happened that we needed a nursing home to take a COVID positive person. It just never happened."

 “I put my head on the pillow at night saying I saved lives, that’s how I sleep at night.”

Update:

"That is not quite true"

CNN

 New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo argued that nursing homes "never needed" to accept Covid-positive patients from hospitals in the state.

During a press call Wednesday, Finger Lakes News Radio asked Cuomo about his administration's advisory in late March requiring that nursing homes accept the readmission of patients from hospitals, even if they were positive for Covid-19.

 

Cuomo argued that the advisory was a precaution if hospitals became overwhelmed -- calling it an "anticipatory rule" -- which he said didn't happen.

 

"We never needed nursing home beds because we always had hospital beds," Cuomo told Finger Lakes News. "So it just never happened in New York where we needed to say to a nursing home, 'We need you to take this person even though they're Covid-positive.' It never happened."

 

Facts First: Cuomo's assertion that "it never happened" is false. According to a report from the New York State Department of Health, "6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to [nursing home] facilities" following Cuomo's mandate that nursing homes accept the readmission of Covid-positive patients from hospitals. Whether or not this was "needed," it did in fact happen.

 

 On March 25, the state's Health Department issued an advisory requiring nursing homes to accept "the expedited receipt of residents returning from hospitals" if the patients were deemed medically stable.

"No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19," the advisory stated. "[Nursing homes] are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission."

The U.S. Comfort and Jacob Javits triage hospital went to waste

 

NY Post

New York health officials were warned in writing that a Brooklyn nursing home where 55 patients have died of coronavirus was overwhelmed — weeks before it began topping the state’s official list of resident COVID-19 deaths, damning emails show.


Cobble Hill Health Center CEO Donny Tuchman sent a desperate email to state Health Department officials on April 9, asking if there was “a way for us to send our suspected covid patients” to the hospital built inside the Javits Convention Center or the US Naval hospital ship Comfort — the under-utilized federal medical facilities on Manhattan’s West Side.


“We don’t have the ability to cohort right now based on staffing and we really want to protect our other patients,” Tuchman wrote in a chain of the emails reviewed by The Post.
 
He was denied.

“I was told those facilities were only for hospitals” to send their overflow patients, Tuchman said.
At the time Tuchman sent his plea, only 134 of the 1,000 beds at the Javits Center were full and the Comfort — which had just been reconfigured to treat up to 500 COVID-19 patients — had a mere 62 on board.

Adding insult to injury, the Navy hospital ship wound up treating just 179 patients before Gov. Cuomo on Tuesday said it was no longer needed.

So I ask again, but to #PresidentCuomo and the New York State Dept. Of Health and not when but why haven't they. Although Javits was available and had plenty of beds.




Update: We should all ask FEMA, the Department of Defense and the President too, looks like Javits went to waste as well.

Gothamist

The federal government is moving forward with plans to shutter the little-used field hospital inside the Javits Center, as the rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York continues to decline. The USNS Comfort, also practically empty, is expected to soon depart as well, President Donald Trump announced earlier this week.

"We are encouraged by the data which suggest the curve is flattening in New York and we are working with the city and state to begin the strategic drawdown of resources," a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Gothamist on Friday.

The spokesperson said there was no set date for either closure. But according to a FEMA official who spoke with ABC News, the Navy ship will leave New York as soon as April 30th. The Javits Center is slated to close on April 30th, according to the unnamed official.

The two facilities have treated 1,100 patients in total, and never came close to approaching their full capacity. As of Friday, just 32 patients were receiving care aboard the Comfort, which has space for 1,000 people, the FEMA spokesperson said. Of the 2,500 beds inside the Javits Center reserved for COVID-19 patients, only 141 were full.

Hospital workers have previously complained about the strict intake procedures at the two Department of Defense facilities, pointing to a 25-point checklist that excluded many would-be patients from being transferred from overrun hospitals, according to the Post.

Amazon considering abandoning Long Island City location for their second headquarters due to pressure from officials, unions and the citizens objections to the deal

NY Daily News

The billion-dollar deal to bring Amazon to Queens has New York Democrats and union leaders at each others’ throats as rumors swirl that the plan could crumble at any minute.

“The question is whether it’s worth it if the politicians in New York don’t want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming,” an anonymous source familiar with internal discussions told the newspaper, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

But the venture has faced a barrage of criticism from local and national politicians, including state Sen. Michael Gianaris, who has argued that one of the nation’s richest corporations should not be getting handouts at the expense of New York taxpayers.

The Queens Democrat, whose district includes the proposed campus, had previously signed a letter asking the company to build its headquarters in New York. He has since soured on the offered incentives.

“Amazon’s pattern of extortion leaves me to believe that they should pack their bags,” he said.

Gianaris, appointed earlier in the week to a panel that could veto a $500 million grant that was part of the construction deal, said he wasn’t sure what Amazon’s next move would be, nor did he seem to care.

“I don’t know whether to believe them or not,” he said. “What I can tell you is that no amount political machinations from Andrew Cuomo are going to mask the fact that this deal stinks"

While some speculated that the rumblings of a reneging Friday might be a power play by Amazon — or even the governor — Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Queens), who opposes the plan, thought the deal was earnestly “in trouble.”

“I think there's a possibility that this is gamesmanship and they're trying to call a bluff — but we're not bluffing,” Van Bramer said. “If in fact it is an attempt to call a bluff, it’s yet another strategic blunder in a series of blunders that the governor, the mayor and Amazon have committed since they announced the deal in November.”

 While it's refreshing to see Jimmy vociferously reject this deal due to the efforts of the people organizing against the corporate welfare deal in his district, he sure was all gung ho a year ago in an letter Crappy sent to me:

Last year he was calling LIC a "mixed-use" neighborhood. So it's kind of good to see he's seen the light and the error of his tone-deaf description of a neighborhood he represents right?

Governor Andrew Amazon on the other hand:

NY Daily News

Gov. Cuomo took aim at Senate Democrats on Friday, accusing his fellow party members of “governmental malpractice” and “political pandering” in their opposition to Amazon’s planned Queens campus and eyeing an unpopular income tax hike.

Addressing business leaders on Long Island, Cuomo warned that his colleagues in the legislature are taking their fate in their own hands by continuing to speak out against the deal to bring the eCommerce titan, and tens of thousands of jobs, to Long Island City.

“For the state Senate to oppose Amazon was governmental malpractice,” Cuomo said. “If they stop Amazon from coming to New York, they’re going to have the people of New York to explain it to.”

Cuomo’s comments came on the heels of a Washington Post report that the online retailer is “reconsidering” its options in light of mounting criticism of the project.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and her counterpart in the Assembly, Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), have both raised concerns about Amazon’s opposition to unionization of its workers and the nearly $3 billion in tax incentives used to entice the company to the Empire State.

Mike Murphy, a spokesman for the Democratic majority in the Senate, lamented the divisions.

"It is unfortunate that the Governor is trying to divide the Democratic Party at this crucial and historic time,” Murphy said. “The Senate Democratic Majority Conference and our partners in the Assembly finally returned New York as the progressive beacon to the rest of the country.”

Andy doth project too much, for it was he who committed malpractice against his constituency and pandered to Bezos to circumvent laws to fast track this rancid deal.

 

Update: