AP: Thousands Recovering from Virus Sent to NY Nursing Homes
BURNETT: Tonight, a new report from The Associated Press shows more than 4,300 people were moved to New York's nursing homes as they recovered from coronavirus. Nearly, 6,000 people died in nursing homes across the state. And the real question now is could plenty of those deaths have been prevented? Jason Carroll is OUTFRONT.</s>CUOMO: Nursing homes are the single biggest fear in all of this.</s>CUOMO: Vulnerable people in one place, it is the feeding frenzy for this virus.</s>CARROLL (voice-over): Despite those words, critics say one of the Governor's executive orders ended up hurting rather than helping those most in need. That former directive asked nursing homes to take recovering COVID patients even if those patients had not first been tested to see if they were clear of the virus. Now, The Associated Press reports more than 4,300 recovering coronavirus patients were returned to nursing homes in the state following the march 25 executive order. The State Department of Health says they're still trying to verify their numbers. CNN has not been able to independently confirm the number of patients discharged from hospitals to nursing homes. Stuart Almer is the CEO of the Gurwin Jewish Nursing Home in Long Island.</s>STUART ALMER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, GURWIN JEWISH: It might have been more of a rush to find a solution during a crisis.</s>CARROLL (voice-over): Almer says under the Governor's directive, his facility had to take in 58 recovering COVID patients from hospitals.</s>ALMER: The mandate came and it just took things to another level. It was almost a cascading effect of events.</s>CARROLL (voice-over): Palmer says 53 residents from his nursing died from COVID-19, but he says it's unclear if any of those deaths were a direct result from accepting recovering patients. Others in the long-term care industry not surprised so many recovering COVID patients ended up in nursing homes.</s>DR. ELAINE HEALY, VICE PRESIDENT OF MEDICAL AFFAIRS, UNITED HEBREW OF NEW ROCHELLE: The focus was really 100 percent on the hospitals and the nursing homes, I always feel that we're sort of an afterthought.</s>CARROLL: Under intense criticism and almost two months after the governor initiated that controversial directive, he reversed it on May 10th and required testing of nursing home residents once a week and staff twice a week.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: We're just not going to send a person who is positive to a nursing home after a hospital visit. Period.</s>CARROLL: According to the state health department, over the past two months, there are more than 3,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths among residents at care facilities in the state. This week, the governor responding to critics saying the former mandate was partly based on not only a critical need for hospital beds at the time, but also on federal guidelines which advised nursing homes should accept COVID-19-positive patients if they could care for them.</s>CUOMO: Anyone who wants to ask why did the state do that with COVID patients and the nursing home, it's because the state followed President Trump's CDC guidance.</s>CARROLL: The administration today showing troubling numbers of COVID cases at care facilities nationwide and again asking states to do more testing.</s>BIRX: To encourage governors that test 100 percent of the nursing home residents and staff because many of our outbreaks that we have seen over the last two months have started in nursing homes.</s>CARROLL: But some health care experts say looking forward, what is needed are more than CDC guideline, but a national policy addressing COVID-19 at nursing homes.</s>PROFESSOR DON TAYLOR, DUKE UNIVERSITY: What concerns me most is that the country hasn't learned enough from the mistake and we don't have a national testing strategy for nursing homes.</s>CARROLL: And, Erin, those that we spoke to in the nursing care industry tell us that going forward what would really help them whether it be at the state level or at the federal level would be to have more of a seat at the table when policies about their industry is being made -- Erin.</s>BURNETT: All right. Jason, thank you very much. And I want to go now to Democratic Assemblyman Ron Kim of Queens, New York, which has been battered with more than 900 confirmed or suspected coronavirus deaths in nursing homes. Assemblyman Kim, I appreciate your time tonight, and, of course, you know, you do represent an area with some of the most nursing home deaths in the state. When you hear that more than 4,300 people who are recovering from the coronavirus were sent back to nursing homes, what's your reaction?</s>ASSEMBLYMAN RON KIM (D), QUEENS, NY: I was absolutely shocked that the state of New York sent so many people back to nursing homes when nursing homes aren't hospitals. These are COVID-positive patients that should have been treated at hospitals or other facilities that were equipped to take them in, and everyone was shocked at that time, and many of us pushed back, wrote letters to the Department of Health and asked them to stop the policy and transfer those patients out. And other states who initially put in those orders scaled back immediately, recognizing the mistakes that they made. But it took us about two months to recognize that error, and it cost a lot of lives in that time period.</s>BURNETT: And, you know, when Governor Cuomo was asked about this, his office says that the state order they're saying was based on federal guidelines and it's almost identical to policies in other -- dozens of other states. It sounds like other states reversed course and New York didn't. I mean, what do you say to the governor?</s>KIM: I mean, other states not only reversed their course, they went the other way and banned COVID-positive patients from entering nursing homes. I mean, that is -- that was our duty as a state. The nursing home residents have fundamental rights that was protected by federal and state guidelines and state statutes. You know, there is a thing called the Bill of Rights for Residents as should have been enforced and strengthened during this COVID-19 crisis and you can completely waive those rights and violate a lot of people's ability to protect themselves. I told the governor that, you know, he should have -- he should have listened early on and he should have reversed the order early on and gone in a different direction. But, you know, there will be plenty of time to figure out why he did this and made the mistake, but right now we need to move forward and get this right because we could be potentially facing a second wave.</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>KIM: And we need to get this right before the second wave hits our most vulnerable populations.</s>BURNETT: But, you know, I guess -- I guess when you look at 4,300 people recovering from the virus and put in nursing homes and these outbreaks that happened, I mean, is it fair to say would deaths have been prevented had this been a different policy?</s>KIM: I think there are different factors that went into this decision making. Around the same time that this executive order was issued the state of New York also issued a blanket corporate immunity for nursing homes and nursing home executives. So, meaning, we were one of 12 states that gave them corporate blanket immunity. So while they're taking in COVID-positive, they knew they couldn't be prosecuted or they couldn't be sued by third parties. So, it's a combination of all those things that I think led to this tragic moment and now we must learn from the mistakes and stop, you know, passing the buck on to other people and we just need to have ownership as a state and we have different laws that we're proposing to achieve that. You know, let's make sure that the buck stops at some point with some leader that we can rely on and stop engaging in the blame game. Somebody needs to step up and take ownership. If we made a mistake we should admit it and move forward and make sure we get this right.</s>BURNETT: Do you think bottom line it would help that Governor Cuomo admits more the mistakes he made?</s>KIM: I think it would be helpful to the thousands of lives including myself. I lost my uncle in April in the middle of helping hundreds of other, you know, local families who couldn't communicate with someone in the nursing home. I lost my uncle in that process. So, I share that trauma and pain and other thousands of families who lost loved ones and I think all of us -- all we are waiting for is the leader to step up and say, if they made a mistake, just admit, and I think we are willing to forgive the governor. We're all going to accept that no one is perfect in these places. But what's important is that we don't get fixated on bad decisions and that we need to grow out of this and learn immediately to move forward in the right direction.</s>BURNETT: All right. Well, I appreciate your time, Assemblyman Kim. Sorry for your loss. And thank you very much.</s>KIM: Thank you.</s>BURNETT: And next, where does the FDA draw the line between science and politics? And Joe Biden walking back this comment tonight.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you have a hard time figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black.</s>BURNETT: The man he was speaking to, Charlamagne Tha God, OUTFRONT.