The state Department of Health (DOH) was unprepared to respond to infectious disease outbreaks at nursing homes, even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York, an audit released March 15 by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found. DiNapoli said that a persistent lack of funding for public health over the last decade forced DOH to operate without critical information systems and staff that could have identified and helped limit the spread of COVID-19 at nursing homes. State auditors also found that DOH did not provide the public with accurate COVID-19 death counts and became entangled in the undercounting of those deaths as the Executive took control of information provided to the public. DOH would not provide auditors with a breakdown by name of the nursing home residents who died from COVID-19, and the actual number of nursing home residents who died is still uncertain. The audit revealed that, on many key indicators, New York significantly trailed other states in surveying nursing homes and developing strategies to stop infections from spreading in facilities.
