COVID-19 report: 'Limited progress' by Gov. Kathy Hochul in planning for outbreaks

ALBANY — A new state report says the administration of Gov. Kathy Hochul has made only “limited progress” in correcting failures of the state Health Department that became evident during outbreaks of COVID-19 in nursing homes in New York.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli had made four recommendations in a March 2022 audit to improve the Health Department's preparedness for another public health emergency. On Wednesday, DiNapoli said one of his recommendations was fully implemented, one was partly implemented and two others weren’t addressed. Also, a recommendation to Hochul to assess internal controls at the Department of Health was “partly implemented,” according to the report released Wednesday.

More than 15,000 nursing home residents died of COVID-19 in the homes and hospitals beginning in early 2020, state data shows.

“Last year, my office examined the extent to which residents in New York’s nursing homes were not adequately protected and the state’s shortfalls in managing the outbreak,” DiNapoli said. “Our follow-up review shows limited progress in fixing all that went wrong. Much more work must be done to address problems that still exist to this day. We have to learn from past mistakes, or we risk repeating them.”

Health Department officials didn't respond immediately to a request for comment Wednesday. However, Hochul said she’s taken steps to replace leadership and increase funding at the department and that the agency is better prepared to deal with any pandemic or public health emergency.

Among DiNapoli's findings:

• A comptroller's recommendation in March that the Health Department help nursing homes understand how to submit accurate information regarding outbreaks wasn’t implemented. The department’s “failure to act on this recommendation means it is likely still collecting, reporting and analyzing data that is inaccurate, inconsistent, and incomplete.”
• In March, DiNapoli said the Hochul administration needed to assess and fix internal controls at the Health Department so officials could make the best decisions in a health crisis and implement them efficiently. The new report gives Hochul credit for appointing new leadership at the department, which has improved communication with health care providers. “However, the Executive Chamber did not provide detailed information to support that it had assessed the internal control environment.”

DiNapoli said problems that still are issues stem from COVID-19 actions made under former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who resigned in 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations he has denied.

“I am 100% with the comptroller’s assessment,” Hochul said. She said the Health Department suffered for years from underfunding and a lack of transparency about its preparedness for public health crises.

“A lot of lessons were learned the hard way,” said Hochul. “Mistakes that were made in the past won’t be made again.”

Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi dismissed DiNapoli’s criticism of Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic, calling it “a cynical game of Monday-morning quarterbacking.”

Hochul was Cuomo’s lieutenant governor during the pandemic, but has said she had little to do with pandemic response.

By Michael Gormley

michael.gormley@newsday.com@GormleyAlbany

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.