Dr. Saphier: ‘I Wasn’t Surprised’ About Underreporting of NY Coronavirus-related Nursing Home deaths

EXCERPT:

SAPHIER: "Janice, her husband and her boys, they've really had a very difficult year, just like many other people. Letitia James, the attorney general from New York, I knew when she was tasked with this responsibility that she would come out for the people. I worked with her in the past on breast cancer legislation and she truly cares. And I can tell you, Harris, nothing was a surprise in that report. I wasn’t surprised at all. And you know who else wasn’t surprised? Janice Dean wasn’t surprised as well as all of the family members who had loved ones die in the nursing homes. Because they all knew, just like the information coming out of Wuhan, the numbers weren’t adding up. And the same with Governor Cuomo's numbers, they weren't adding up. This was not a data error. This was not a mistake. This was a choice not to include nursing home residents' deaths into their calculations. And early on when Governor Cuomo was praising what they were doing saying that their nursing home fatality rate was 20 percent, and Massachusetts was over 60 percent, and Florida was 40 percent, that’s because they weren’t including the same amount of people who died in the hospitals that were transferred from the nursing homes. It's time for the self-congratulatory tour to end.”