Politicians and COVID-19 Lies

(I am trying to reduce COVID coverage this semester. This is a follow-up).

Over the last year, I documented a lot of cases of politically motivated lying about COVID-19 cases and deaths. This was both in the U.S., and elsewhere.

And, keep in mind, some of this may not be lying at all, but rather an inability of local sources to keep up with new information.

The important one from this past month is the apparent cover-up in the state of New York. 

I am not versed on the background numbers on this, but I did live in New York until I was 24, and I still have close family there. It has always been my impression that their system of state-supported nursing homes is thicker than in other states, and that there seemed to be a policy of more readily triaging the stable out of hospitals into nursing homes. 

This became a problem last spring: nursing home patients would contract COVID-19, they'd be checked into a hospital, they'd get stabilized, and then sent back to the nursing home where they'd infect more people.

Healthcare professionals were aware that this might spread the infection, and asked for a new policy. But, a political decision was made on March 25th to require nursing homes to follow the old policy. No doubt this was to reduce workloads at jammed hospitals. Anyway, a lot more seniors in New York died than in other states, due to this policy.

Here's the thing: the Cuomo administration was asked directly for information on the results of this policy. And they both fibbed about the numbers, and stalled releasing the correct ones for six months. Now there's a report out showing that the policy probably led to around 1,000 excess deaths.

This is a big deal because Governor Cuomo was probably the American politician who created the most positive impression with his ability to handle the crisis. Now that whole thing has been called into question, and as is usual in politics, the cover-up may be worse than the original sin.