How long did the NY Attorney General have the info on nursing home deaths before she released it?

Given that 16 November 2020 is the last day included in the data set she investigated, and given that one cannot really acquire the data for a day until it is over, the absolute earliest day she could have had all of the information would be 17 November 2020. That would leave about two months for the Office of the Attorney General to analyze the information and write up its report, which is a normal interval for this kind of thing. And of course, they probably didn’t have all of the information on 17 November 2020.

It doesn’t really matter, does it?? It’s not like anyone is going to be brought back to life.

I agree with kritiper, but for what it’s worth:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is once again in hot water over how his administration has handled nursing homes during the pandemic and how the state reported COVID-19 deaths among elderly residents. In the latest development, reporting has revealed that members of the Cuomo administration edited out a higher nursing home death toll from a July report on COVID-19 in nursing homes. It’s the earliest example of action taken by Cuomo and his aides in what many see as a coverup of the true toll of COVID-19 on nursing homes.

https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/policy/health-care/timeline-cuomos-handling-covid-19-nursing-homes.html

I think Cuomo made a bad decision, BUT where the hell were the medical professionals in all of it?! Why weren’t NYC doctors pushing back? Why wasn’t CDC, NIAID, and Birk helping with the decisions? Cuomo is a politician not a medical expert. Trump should have had his team preempting the likely problems in our big cities and nursing homes. Incompetence.

I have no idea when all the nursing home deaths were calculated, but deaths are usually counted where they happen. That’s why hospitals transfer dying patients to nursing homes and hospice facilities or floors. The death gets counted there rather than as a death statistic in the hospital.

@kritiper So why talk about any Covid deaths? I mean why hold Trump accountable for any of it since, after all, it’s not like anyone is going to be brought back to life?

How long James had the information before releasing it is the variable we don’t have. As @SavoirFaire says, the date of the last data was November, so that would be the date she had ALL the data. However it is extremely unlikely that she didn’t know long before that.

As per the timeline (I found the same link @smudges provided), the directive went effective April 3rd and it was rescinded on May 10th after much outrage and a lot of political pressure being brought to bear on Cuomo. It is likely that at some point, she was brought in on discussions concerning culpability of the state and the governor before that. So she was aware of the issue.

When someone commissions an investigation and the data is gathered, it is also common for routine update reports to be sent to the powers that be throughout the process. So it is likely that she had some good understanding of what the data was saying before the last piece was gathered.

But the question that needs to be asked is why did she want data gathered for that long? I would suspect data was gathered for the purpose of establishing not only how many deaths actually occurred during the time of the directive, but also what “normal” during Covid would look like. However, the directive was only in place for a little more than a month. When the damaging guidance was removed, the number of deaths attributable to it would have faded away fairly quickly. To get to a baseline should have not taken 6 months. 2 months at best. So why gather data for so long? And evaluating the data and writing the report should not have taken 2 months either.

My suspicion is that she had her answer and enough data to write her report in July. I believe the delay was all politically motivated. Timing is everything. If Cuomo was bringing pressure onto her, he would want the data delayed because he was still taking shots in the public arena about the deaths and it was still fresh in everyone’s mind. If it was James looking to boost her own political career, she would benefit more from separating her efforts against Trump and her efforts in the nursing home murders. It keeps her name in the press for longer and neither effort is diluted by the other.

I don’t believe we can make a definitive date for when she had enough data, though.

@seawulf575 Thanks for a wonderful answer.

I am going to ask you a follow-up question. You speculated that the reason for the delay from Cuomo’s point of view was he would want the data delayed because he was still taking shots in the public arena about the deaths and it was still fresh in everyone’s mind. How about his book deal? In other words, was the cover-up financially motivated which makes it at least twice as bad?

@crazyguy It could be. He has been under a lot of scrutiny for the past year. He put out a book deal, but to be honest, I don’t think that was the motivation for James. For one, it doesn’t do anything for her and for the other, her release of the report on the nursing homes came out months before Cuomo announced his plans to write a book. That sort of information (plans to write a book) would probably not have come up at normal staff meetings and the like.

As I said, since the actual stuff Cuomo did with the nursing homes was from March to April, the necessary data could have been gathered by July/August at the latest. Figure another month to evaluate the data and write a report. We are now looking at September. Getting close to election time. Now Cuomo was not up for re-election, however, if it came out that he entirely botched the nursing homes and cost the lives of over 6000 elderly folks, it would look bad. That Donald Trump actually called him out on it and Cuomo doubled down on his orders, AND that the rest of the Dems and the MSM refused to hold him accountable, would not only make him look bad, but would make Democrats look bad as well. Joe Biden never said boo to him about the nursing homes. Kamala Harris never said boo either. In fact, Biden even praised Cuomo’s handling of the Covid-19 issue. Praised him before the election. So, let’s say the data is available and it has been looked at and it says Cuomo is responsible for all these deaths. And the Democratic presidential candidate has praised his leadership and is running on the platform that the REPUBLICAN response is what killed people. If you put out a report verifying that Cuomo killed people in September or October with the election in November, you are basically saying Joe Biden has no clue…doesn’t recognize a good response from a bad one. Oops.
So, you claim you have to gather data until November and THEN put out the information in a report…after the new president is sworn in. THAT is your political motivation. Had James bucked the system and put out the report as early as she could, she would have had herself branded as a traitor to the party and her political career would have been over.

@seawulf575 I think you are being too charitable. Per
https://buffalonews.com/news/state-and-regional/seven-months-later-cuomo-administration-divulges-details-about-his-covid-19-book-deal/article_e2ba30ba-9275-11eb-9642-83fedbd461fc.html

Cuomo received the go-ahead for his book in July 2020.

Per
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-releases-report-nursing-homes-response-covid-19

Letitia James started her investigation in March 2020.

Obviously Cuomo knew about her investigation, and he also knew what she might uncover. Since she worked for him it is easy to understand how she could be persuaded to report her findings after the book deal was finalized, which happened to be in the Democrats’ larger interest also.

One of the things that James’ investigation ended up looking into was Cuomo’s alteration of a July 2020 Department of Health report on nursing home deaths, so it’s hard to see how the report could have been completed in July 2020. And the fact that Cuomo had the report altered meant that all numbers reported up to that point had to be reexamined (since DOH numbers couldn’t be taken for granted anymore).

Furthermore, Cuomo tried to get his fingers into the AG’s report in April 2020 when he announced that the NY Department of Health would partner with the NY Office of the Attorney General to investigate nursing home deaths. This gave him some control over the timeline for releasing information, even though it didn’t give him control over the final content of the report.

I lived in New York for 25 years. I could have told you that Cuomo was corrupt before he even announced he would run for governor. But trying to drag James into it at this time seems like a stretch, especially considering how surprised both Democrats and Republicans were that her report was so critical of Cuomo (even former Pataki aides gave her credit).

Even if we think there are some political calculations involved in her decision to go after him (on this and the sexual harassment charges), we don’t really have any evidence at present that she has done anything wrong. If anything, it looks like her political aspirations have pushed her to do the right thing by going after Cuomo. New evidence might change things, of course, but that’s true of everything.

@SavoirFaire as I stated, the data collection could have been done by July/August. The report could have been done a month later. That would still include the time Cuomo spent trying to alter the report.
I find it humorous that after living in NY for 25 years you could tell us Cuomo was corrupt. If you watch the leftist propagandist (CNN, NBC, WaPo, NYT, etc) he is a stellar leader, a real honest Charlie. Why the disconnect between what real people know and what the news puts out as “news”?
As for “dragging James” into this, I don’t think anyone was dragged into anything. She wrote a report. The original question was about the timing of the report and if there was anything odd there. I personally think there was. But that doesn’t mean she was some sort of schemer. It could mean that Cuomo brought pressure onto her. It could be that the DNC brought pressure onto her. Or it could mean she has political asperations of her own that would benefit from the timing

@seawulf575 @SavoirFaire You two are among the reasons I persist with Fluther. Whether I agree with you or not, I am always assured that you guys do your homework before writing up a lengthy post.

In this case, I agree 100% with wulfie that James stayed under Cuomo’s thumb until his book deal was finalized. She then decided to compile and publish her report, and he did not stop her because his fortune was assured by then. The DNC did not care either – their man was in the WH.

@seawulf575 “as I stated, the data collection could have been done by July/August.”

Under normal circumstances, I would completely agree. But when it was discovered in July that the data gathered up to that point might be unreliable (because Cuomo had interfered with it), it became necessary to go back over it. The needed data was revealed to be the post-review data, and not the data that had been interfered with. I’m not trying to split hairs here, so my apologies if this seems overly picky. But I think it is important for understanding at least part of the story.

“The report could have been done a month later.”

But again, Cuomo’s initial order and his April interference enabled him to set a lot of the timeline regarding data collection and data release. That’s why I find it strange to implicate James in the putative delays (since the timeline wasn’t up to her, and Cuomo seems to have purposefully manipulated the timeline to take advantage of state and federal laws about reporting requirements during election years). Cuomo repeatedly abused his power, and James’ report was delayed as a result of that. Yes, the delays may end up helping James politically, and maybe Cuomo thought that giving her that help would influence her to play down his culpability. But she didn’t. Her report was not at all good for him, and she is continuing to pursue other charges against him—including further inquiries into the nursing home debacle, which are being hindered by Cuomo and Tom DiNapoli (the state’s Comptroller).

“As for ‘dragging James’ into this, I don’t think anyone was dragged into anything.”

There seems to be an effort—not necessarily from you or @crazyguy—to paint James as being equally corrupt as Cuomo (or at least similarly corrupt, since “equally” is a pretty high bar to clear). That’s what I meant by “dragging James into this”—trying to drag her into the actual scandal, which I just don’t think we have evidence for right now.

“Why the disconnect between what real people know and what the news puts out as ‘news’?”

Because the popular media is an easily distracted puppy being led around by an owner whose only interest is selling advertisements. The puppy is obsessed with self-promotion and overly invested in the public narrative. The owner is obsessed with self-marketing and overly averse to spending the sort of money that deep journalism requires. It’s a bad situation that keeps good journalists out of the spotlight and puts good journalism on page F-13 or in the 2:00 AM time slot.

There’s plenty of good journalism out there, both from the outlets you mentioned and others. But it never leads. Instead of “here’s my three year investigation into Cuomo’s bad behavior both before and after his run for office,” we get “Cuomo’s popular right now, so let’s pursue that for as long as we can!” Even news outlets opposed to Cuomo will ignore the deeper stuff for whatever is big in the moment. We’ll get the the three year investigation story, but not until he resigns, loses reelection, or decides not to run again (i.e., too late). Because the other story makes people stars and sells more ads.

It starts early, too. I worked on the student newspaper in college, and the tension between the people who were interested in journalism and the people who were interested in the business of newspapers was already there. The faculty advisor’s priorities were also pretty messed up.

@SavoirFaire I do believe that James went along with Cuomo’s insistence that she not say anything until she had completed her investigation. To that extent she is part of the coverup.

@crazyguy But do you have any evidence of that, or is it just pure speculation?

@SavoirFaire The comment about having to go over the data again is fair, but again, let’s be honest. We aren’t looking at even 6 months of data. We are looking at one month and then at least another month to see what a “Covid” baseline should look like. So let’s say it takes another month to verify your data. That still puts it in the August/September timeframe, not January.
The comment about a month later for the report would move with the review of the data. The point of the month is to give people a chance to digest the data and write a report. In this case, it really isn’t that in-depth. A number of people died in nursing homes when Cuomo passed his directives. He removed his directives and the death rate dropped. The only thing you are really establishing is how many deaths he was responsible for.
The comments about James don’t look, to me anyway, like anyone is saying she is in the same league as Cuomo on corruption. But she is an elected official. And as such, political pressure and games do play a part in her decisions. Doesn’t mean she is corrupt, but maybe she felt an inordinate amount of pressure and did the best she could. The real issue, in my mind, in a case like that is: who is bringing the pressure and why?
As for the media, I just read the book Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow. It is his story of how he broke the Weinstein story. The part of that book that explains so much about today’s journalism is how NBC axed the story repeatedly. They actively blocked Farrow a number of times and did so at the request of Weinstein. They even had people working with Weinstein in a consulting position. Those decisions had nothing to do with advertising money, or public opinion or any of that. It was just plain, old fashioned, corruption. They didn’t want to bring disgrace on Weinstein, despite the fact he was a sexual predator. His crimes were not even considered in their decisions. What Harvey wanted was what mattered. And I’m sorry, I don’t believe for one minute they were unique in this behavior. I WAS actually surprised the New Yorker ran with the story.

@SavoirFaire It is pure speculation; based on the timing of the deaths, the book deal, the election and release of her report.

@seawulf575 I listened to that same book on audible and was struck by not only NBC’s axing of the story but also by the reluctance of victims to come forward.

Shades of the same woke-ism that is running wild today!