The vast majority of voters believe that Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) deliberately concealed the true number of coronavirus-related nursing home deaths in his state, a Hill-HarrisX poll released Monday revealed.
“Which comes closest to your views of NY Governor Andrew Cuomo?” the survey asked, giving respondents two choices.
Seventy-one percent of all voters said Cuomo was “aware of the true number of COVID deaths in nursing homes and concealed it, compared to 29 percent who said he was unaware of the true number of COVID deaths in nursing homes.”
Notably, 62 percent of Democrats agree that he was aware of the true number of coronavirus deaths in nursing homes and concealed it. A majority of Republicans (80 percent) and independent voters (71 percent) agreed.
The survey, taken February 24-26, among 1,909 registered voters, has a margin of error of +/- 2.24 percent.
It comes as Cuomo faces political fallout for dueling scandals: His administration’s nursing home coverup and allegations of sexual harassment, though the latter has largely overshadowed the nursing coverup in recent days.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) on Monday said that the nursing home issue should not fall to the wayside as Democrats continue to express more public concern over the allegations of sexual harassment.
“And we need to look at the nursing home issue. We cannot just look at one or the other. We need a full investigation of the nursing home issue where thousands of people died,” de Blasio said.
“Information was covered up on purpose, and we still don’t know if our seniors are safe going forward — our elders. We don’t know if they’re safe because we have not got a full accounting of the facts,” he continued.
“Both these issues need to be looked into independently, thoroughly, and we need to know what has to change as a result,” he added:
Cuomo has continued to deny that his administration deliberately covered up the number of nursing home deaths and actively blamed staffers and visitors — not the administration’s controversial March 25 directive — for spreading the virus in nursing homes.