Many of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s claims when it comes to how the state handled nursing homes during the pandemic has been rated “Mostly False” by PolitiFact in a new article.

First, in September Cuomo touted that New York ranked 46th out of 50 states when it came to preventing nursing home COVID deaths. 

PolitiFact lists this claim as “Mostly False,” since at this point New York was not including the number of nursing home resident deaths that occurred in hospitals or other outside facilities. 

It was not until the State Attorney General released a report showing the Cuomo administration was undercounting nursing home deaths by around 50% and the Empire Center won a lawsuit against the state, did the Health Department release that more than 13,400 nursing home residents died from COVID. 

Almost every state in the country includes hospital deaths in their COVID nursing home death totals. 

Priya Chidambaram, a senior policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation tells the PolitiFact analyst that, “New York’s decision to pull out the hospital-based deaths was not based on standard practice.”

This makes the state’s COVID death rate for nursing homes roughly 29%, which is still lower than the national average of 37%. 

For this reason, PolitiFact does list Cuomo’s claim that the state is still “below the national average in number of deaths in nursing homes,” as "Mostly True."

Next, when it comes to Cuomo’s controversial March 25 executive memo that allowed nursing homes to accept COVID positive residents, PolitiFact rated Cuomo’s claim he was following federal guidance as “Mostly False.”

The Cuomo administration’s memo stated that nursing homes "must comply with the expedited receipt of residents” coming from hospitals, regardless of whether they are infected with the new coronavirus, leading many facilities to believe they did not have a choice. 

However, the guidance that was issued from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year said that nursing homes can admit COVID positive patients, but only if they could properly care for them. 

The PolitiFact analysis did find former Health and Human Services official Michael Caputo’s claim that thousands of nursing home residents died as a direct result of Cuomo’s March 25 memo to be “Mostly False.”

Yet, it does reference the Empire Center’s report that found at least 1,000 nursing home residents most likely died as a result of the Cuomo administration’s March 25 directive.