EDITORIAL: Cuomo scrambles after DOJ seeks nursing home data

A handful of governors are furious that the public may eventually learn what role their missteps played in boosting coronavirus deaths.

In late August, the Department of Justice asked New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan for coronavirus data. Each of those states required nursing homes to take in coronavirus patients.

“No resident shall be denied readmission or admission to (a nursing home) solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19,” New York ordered in March. 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 DOJ wants to “determine if the state orders requiring admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes is responsible for the deaths of nursing home residents.”

That’s certainly possible because this highly contagious disease is very lethal for the elderly and medically fragile. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo claimed the policy was necessary to relieve overcrowded hospitals. Thankfully, New York never ran out of hospital capacity. But he kept the order in place even after it was obvious there would be a surplus of surge capacity. One nursing home asked him to permit the transfer of patients to a field hospital. Mr. Cuomo refused the request, according to the Wall Street Journal. He rescinded the policy in May only after facing political pressure.

New York is painted as a pandemic success story in many quarters, but let’s not forget that more than 32,000 New Yorkers have died from this virus. The state’s death rate per million residents is at 1,680. That trails only New Jersey, with a death rate of 1,733 per million. For comparison, Florida, which Gov. Cuomo has repeatedly attacked, has a death rate of 480 per million. Nevada is at 476. Texas, another state whose GOP governor caught the wrath of progressives for eschewing lockdowns, has a rate of 380 per million.

Despite the evidence — or perhaps because of it — Gov. Cuomo has continued to defend his actions. New York officials released a report showing 6,600 nursing home deaths. In contrast to other states, they didn’t include nursing home patients who had the coronavirus but died after being transferred to a hospital. Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that could bring the total to around 11,000, according to The Associated Press.

Gov. Cuomo decried the federal government’s request and personally attacked U.S. Attorney General William Barr. He argues that the move is politically motivated. That’s the reaction you’d expect from someone worried that he won’t have anywhere to hide once the data comes out.

In fact, the data would be eminently useful to prevent a recurrence. The sooner the public sees this information, the better.