New Yorkers who lost loved ones to COVID-19 are losing patience with Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has yet to launch a promised probe into the Cuomo-Hochul administration’s response to the pandemic.
“When asked about trying to get to the bottom of what happened here in New York during the height of the pandemic, she talks about blue-ribbon panels and finding out about the good, bad and ugly, but I don’t believe her anymore,” said Janice Dean, a senior meteorologist at Fox News who lost both her in-laws to COVID-19 in nursing homes.
The governor has suggested on multiple occasions she wants to find the facts about the state’s COVID-19 response since replacing disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo – who infamously covered up data detailing deaths among nursing home residents – last August.
But Gov. Hochul — who is up for election in November — has yet to appoint any investigators or even seek proposals from outside consultants who would help with such an effort, according to Gotham Gazette, though RFPs could be released in the months ahead.
“She’s slow-walking this investigation as a political move. She’s slowing the investigation because she was part of the administration. She was silent when Cuomo issued the order to put COVID patients in nursing homes. She was silent the whole time. We already don’t trust her,” Tracey Alvino, assistant director of Voices for Seniors – whose father, Daniel Alvino, died of COVID in West Islip Nursing Home – told The Post Wednesday.
Other critics say they are holding out hope that Hochul gets an investigation moving sooner rather than later.
“It’s time to turn her empathy into action, and I look forward to working with her when she does so,” said Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Flushing), who has sponsored bipartisan legislation with state Sen. Jim Tedisco (R-Schenectady) to create a state investigation of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents.
The lack of concrete progress has not prevented the Hochul administration from claiming progress for months
Investigative efforts were “underway,” a spokeswoman told Gotham Gazette in April.
Hochul personally suggested that “outside consultants” were already being picked by May 23 – a comment that gained her headlines across the state for supposedly pursuing a probe.
“I have to be able to leave future governors what was learned. Not just in the healthcare space in response to nursing homes, but also decisions that affected our economy,” Hochul added.
Hochul senior advisor Bryan Lesswing told the Post that the administration is currently in “a multi-step process” after the governor “directed her team to explore” a “review” of the state handling of COVID-19 in March.
“We are currently finalizing the scope of the Request for Proposal to achieve a meaningful review, a process that includes conferring with experts across various industries, and we expect the Request for Proposal to be posted publicly later this summer,” he said in a statement.
He also touted administration efforts to safeguard nursing homes over the past year and bills signed into law by Hochul that tighten oversight over nursing homes.
Yet, her administration has not officially announced who would conduct an investigation and what the scope of it would be.
A spokesman for Cuomo, Richard Azzopardi, fired back at critics of how the former governor handled COVID-19, which included a controversial order affecting nursing homes.
“The full number of COVID fatalities in New York has never been in dispute and craven attempts to further politicize this pandemic become more and more transparent each passing day,” he said in a statement.
Bill Hammond, a senior fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy, said an investigation could address unanswered questions about why COVID-19 hit the Empire State so hard early on in the pandemic as well as detail who helped Cuomo and other key officials craft their own responses.
A governor dragging her feet on launching an investigation hardly helps answer such questions, according to Hammond.
“I don’t think the governor should be able to deflect the way she has because she sort of reassured people like me … ‘We’re going to look at this’ – and then nothing happens. That’s not good,” he said.
