The daughter of an elderly woman who died of COVID-19 in a New York nursing home ripped disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo Wednesday for covering up his decision to move infected patients into senior care facilities at the start of the pandemic.
Vivian Zayas told lawmakers on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that her mother, Ana Martinez, and thousands of others who were confined in nursing homes between March and May 2020 as a result of Cuomo’s directive were “treated like zoo animals” and died alone.
“We never saw our beautiful mother again. She was dead shortly after. Gasping for air, alone, confused, and scared without her daughters who were her translators and caregivers,” said Zayas, who later cofounded the COVID support group Voices for Seniors. “My mom didn’t get to meet her grandchildren or her great-grandchildren.”
Albany’s Department of Health issued an order on March 25, 2020, forcing senior care facilities to house COVID-positive patients discharged from hospitals.
The directive was quietly rescinded on May 10, 2020.
“Like many other families, the nursing home kept us in the dark as well, never telling us that they were admitting COVID-positive patients at the insistence of Governor Cuomo,” said Zayas, who noted that the former governor and other Democrats have evaded responsibility for that decision for more than 1,000 days.
After rescinding the order, Cuomo and his top advisers pressed state health officials to cover up the total number of nursing home deaths due to COVID-19 by excluding fatalities that occurred outside of facilities in a July 2020 report.
One year later, a senior Cuomo adviser and state Health Department spokesperson admitted the governor had lied that just 6,432 deaths had occurred in the care facilities.
As of March 2021, more than 15,000 New York nursing home residents were reported to have died from the virus, including in their facilities as well hospitals.
“Governor Cuomo knew that the must-admit order was wreaking havoc on nursing homes throughout New York. And so, his administration froze the state’s nursing home deaths data,” Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) said in his opening remarks.
“Our initial inquiries to our local legislators requesting an investigation into the factors that contributed to the death of our loved ones were met with roadblocks, vitriol and partisan accusations,” Zayas said. “That was extremely troubling since my mother [was] a Puerto Rican woman who along with most of our family were lifelong Democrats.”
Zayas’ mother was moved to a senior care facility after having been briefly hospitalized for a minor cyst. She was expected to make a full recovery.
Other subcommittee witnesses panned Cuomo’s pandemic memoir “American Crisis” and his decision to publish it while the outbreak was ongoing after receiving more than $5 million to write it.
“He was worried about his image and promoting a book in the middle of a pandemic — not at the end, where you can have more foresight — in the middle of a pandemic, while my mother and all these seniors were gasping for air and died alone,” said Zayas.
The subcommittee also heard from Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean, who lost both her in-laws to COVID while housed in a nursing home; Bill Hammond, senior fellow for health policy at the Empire Center, the think tank which revealed that Cuomo’s directive led to excess senior deaths due to the virus; and Dr. David Grabowski, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School.
“I didn’t think the book was accurate or well done,” Hammond told subcommittee members. “And to the extent that people thought it was, I think they were misled.”
A March 2022 report from the New York State Health Department found Cuomo had “misled the public” and undercounted deaths by more than 50% to try to save his image.
Cuomo resigned in August 2021 following allegations of sexual harassment by several women during his time in office.
