Andrew Cuomo agrees to testify publicly next week about his Covid-era nursing home advisory
By Jake Tapper, CNN
(CNN) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will testify publicly before Congress next week about his controversial nursing home advisory from the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, informed sources and a House subcommittee say.
As CNN reported earlier, Cuomo, who testified in June behind closed doors before members of the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, will testify in front of the same panel on September 10.
“Andrew Cuomo owes answers to the 15,000 families who lost loved ones in New York’s nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. On September 10, Americans will have the opportunity to hear directly from the former governor about New York’s potentially fatal nursing home policies,” Rep. Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican who chairs the subcommittee, said in a statement Tuesday morning.
A spokesperson for Cuomo confirmed Monday night that the former governor will testify.
“The one question that needs to be answered is still being ignored: ‘Why did more people die from COVID in the United States than any other country and how do we make sure it never happens again?’ It is Governor Cuomo’s pleasure to join the committee once again to try to get an answer,” said Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo’s spokesperson.
In a series of tweets Tuesday morning, the committee detailed takeaways from Cuomo’s June interview. The panel said he was “shockingly callous when discussing New York’s nursing home mortality rate” and that he “repeatedly deflected responsibility for issuing the nursing home directive.”
The committee said it also conducted interviews with nine high-ranking former Cuomo administration officials. It said transcripts from all interviews, including Cuomo’s, would be released ahead of the hearing next week.
A 2021 investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, found that the New York State Department of Health undercounted Covid-19 deaths among residents of nursing homes by approximately 50%, essentially by leaving out deaths of residents who had been transferred to hospitals. A 2022 audit by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli concluded that Cuomo’s health department failed to report roughly 4,100 deaths between April 2020 and February 2021.
Cuomo has insisted that advisory was consistent with guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Wenstrup said on “The Lead” in April that lawmakers wanted to ask the Democratic former governor about the March 2020 advisory, which barred nursing homes from rejecting patients solely on the basis of a Covid-19 diagnosis.
“I’m trying to learn why he would do something like this,” Wenstrup said. “As a doctor who has treated infections, it goes against all medical common sense to take someone who was highly contagious and put them amongst the most vulnerable.”
Cuomo was first elected governor in 2010 and served nearly three full terms before he resigned in August 2021 following the release of a report by James’ office that found he had sexually harassed 11 women. Cuomo has denied the allegations.
CNN’s Mark Morales contributed to this report.
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