On Thursday, CNN fact-checked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s claim that New York nursing homes “never needed” to accept Covid-positive patients from hospitals and determined it to be “false.”
As The Daily Wire reported, Finger Lakes News Radio asked Cuomo about the New York Department of Health’s administration’s advisory in late March requiring nursing homes to accept the readmission of patients from hospitals, even those afflicted with the coronavirus. Cuomo replied:
The rule that the state had, which was from the CDC guidance, right? The state didn’t make it up; they were following the CDC guidance. Now you can say, “Well, the state health department was stupid to follow the federal guidance,” and you may have a point there. But the rule said the nursing homes can’t discriminate on the basis of COVID. The law also said a nursing home cannot accept a person who they cannot treat effectively while protecting the other residents. That’s the law. The point of the two rules was, if hospitals became overwhelmed, which was a real possibility, if not probability early on, we’d have to discharge people from hospitals and they’d have to go back to nursing homes. And that’s why the anticipatory rule was you can’t discriminate against a COVID-positive person. But you’d have to be able to take care of them without infecting other people. And if you can’t do that, you can’t accept them.
“We never needed nursing home beds because we always had hospital beds,” he continued. ‘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.”
CNN took issue with Cuomo’s claims, writing:
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.
CNN noted the March 25 advisory that the state’s Health Department issued, which stated: “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19. 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.”
Cuomo altered the advisory on May 10, issuing an executive order making hospitals ascertain whether patients tested negative before nursing homes could accept them.
CNN quoted a May 21 Associated Press report that acknowledged, “More than 4,500 recovering coronavirus patients were sent to New York’s already vulnerable nursing homes” under the state’s advisory. CNN also referenced a New York Health Department report in July stating “approximately 6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to facilities between March 25, 2020 and May 8, 2020.”