Judge orders release of NY data on long-term care deaths
A state judge ordered New York’s Department of Health to release records about nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 in a Wednesday ruling that said the agency’s failure to do so already was a “violation” of New York’s open government law.
Albany County Acting Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O’Connor also ordered Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration Wednesday to pay legal fees for The Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative-leaning, nonprofit think tank that filed suit demanding the release of the records last fall.
New York regularly releases the number of residents who died at individual nursing homes and assisted living homes after testing positive for COVID-19. But, unlike other states, it does not regularly give out that information for those residents who died at hospitals.