Governor to relax visitation rules, still defends actions in nursing homes
Edith Rubin got a visit from her family at Gurwin nursing home in Commack on Thanksgiving Day in November. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Friday said the state plans to relax visitation rules at nursing homes, and — for the second time in a briefing this week — defended the state's actions on the placement of nursing home residents and the delayed release of information about their coronavirus-related deaths.
Cuomo said the state will ease visitation restrictions since about 73% of residents at those facilities have been vaccinated. He did not put a date on the return of nursing home visits, but said the state Department of Health will be issuing guidance Monday to specify how those visits are to take place.
The governor said part of that guidance will include recommending visitors take rapid tests for COVID-19 before entering the facilities. The rapid tests, he said, are "very quick" and "not intrusive," and the state will provide those tests to the nursing homes to facilitate the visits.
"One of the most devastating aspects of this virus has been how it separated families from their loved ones, making an already difficult situation even harder to bear," Cuomo said. "Thanks to the dedication of New Yorkers, we're now at a point where we can begin to resume nursing home visitations under strict guidelines to protect the health and safety of residents."
Cuomo's announcement was welcomed by skilled nursing facility caregivers.
"It's been terrible for people to be so isolated, and while we do a lot, nothing replaces family," said Dr. David Siskind, medical director at Northwell's Stern Family Center for Rehabilitation in Manhasset. "Any news that reduces the isolation is great. Isolation is a strain on mental health, which is tied to physical health, stress and anxiety."
Long Island nursing homes have had few visitors because of a mandate from Cuomo in September that a facility must go 14 days without a patient or staff member testing positive for COVID-19. The directive had been even more stringent during the worst of the pandemic, at 28 days.
"A lot still has to be worked out on how all this will work," Siskind said, referring to the new rules from the state. "Do the new rules supersede the previous edicts? We will need some clarification."
Meanwhile, the Cuomo administration finds itself in the midst of a firestorm over the placement of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 back in nursing homes at the height of the pandemic and, most recently, about revelations that it delayed the release of information to the State Legislature about deaths affecting that elderly population.
While Cuomo has accepted his administration created "a void" of information concerning nursing home deaths, he and his health commissioner maintained Friday that the state made the right decisions about placing nursing home residents in those facilities. He also said a request for information from the U.S. Department of Justice took precedence over state lawmakers' inquiry at the center of the controversy.
Cuomo, instead, blamed himself for not pushing back harder on what he characterized as political attacks.
"We should have provided more public information. Sooner. Yes, no excuse," he said during a livestreamed briefing from Albany on Friday. "We should have been more aggressive in fighting misinformation."
The U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI have begun a criminal investigation into how Cuomo's administration handled COVID-19 in nursing homes, according to sources knowledgeable about the probe. Those sources said the investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn was triggered by statements made by Melissa DeRosa, secretary to the governor, in a Feb. 10 Zoom meeting with legislators. During the meeting, DeRosa acknowledged the administration had delayed providing information of nursing home deaths to the State Legislature.
The investigation was started over the weekend by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District in Brooklyn and a public integrity squad in Manhattan, the sources said, adding that the preliminary investigation was looking into a variety of potential crimes, including obstruction and inappropriate use of federal funds.
With Robert E. Kessler and Michael Gormley
