Cuomo to testify publicly before GOP-led House panel on COVID about NY's 15K nursing home deaths

Former New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo will testify publicly next week before the GOP-led House panel on the pandemic that will focus on his administration requiring nursing homes and long-term care facilities to admit people with COVID-19, which was connected to a large number of deaths in that population.

Cuomo will testify Sept. 10 before the chamber's Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. He has already appeared before the panel for a private transcribed interview that lasted seven hours.

Panel Chairman Brad Wenstrup said Cuomo will be questioned about his administration’s issuance of "unscientific guidance" that forced New York nursing homes and long-term care facilities to admit such patients.

“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," Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement Tuesday. 

In January 2021, New York State Attorney General Letitia James issued a report that found the Cuomo administration had undercounted the total deaths from COVID within nursing homes by 50% –  8,500 to 15,000 – in part because many residents died in hospitals after being transferred there. Those figures were reportedly left out of the agency's total nursing home death data.