Troy L. Milliron 
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said the state Department of Health was unprepared to respond to infectious disease outbreaks even before the COVID-19 pandemic began there. two years old.
The Comptroller’s Office released an audit that includes a timeline of the Department of Health’s underreporting of nursing home deaths by at least 4,100, sometimes more than fifty percent.
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The report accuses former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration of taking control of information provided to the public for undercounting and failure to share information with listeners.
DiNapoli called the audit’s findings “extremely disturbing”, saying “the public has been misled by those at the highest levels of state government through the distortion and suppression of facts”.
He says an important step would be for the Department of Health to provide families who have lost loved ones with answers regarding the actual number of nursing home residents who died in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak.
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Attorney General Letitia James released a statement saying the Comptroller’s audit confirmed some of the findings of the January 2021 AG report on nursing home deaths and the response to COVID.
She says anyone concerned about care home conditions is asked to contact the Attorney General’s office. They can file confidential complaints online or by calling 833-249-8499.
