Cuomo Decision to Centralize Control of NY’s COVID-19 Response Was Mistake: Audit

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo following a closed-door interview with the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Coronavirus Pandemic on Capitol Hill, on June 11, 2024. (Al Drago/Getty Images)

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s centralized control of the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a “significant and obvious mistake,” according to an audit commissioned by his successor.

Existing structures were “were largely ignored,” leading to “unnecessary confusion at a time when New Yorkers needed clarity,” the Olson Group, which conducted the audit for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, concluded in the “New York State COVID-19 After Action Report.”

Mr. Cuomo and Ms. Hochul are both Democrats.

New York state officials prepared to tackle COVID-19 in early 2020 as the number of cases in China and elsewhere grew. However, Mr. Cuomo’s office displaced the New York State Department of Health and other agencies to lead the response to COVID-19 shortly after cases began being confirmed in the state.

Mr. Cuomo’s flurry of executive orders, including an order mandating wearing masks in public, were issued instead of following plans in place to deal with pandemics, according to the audit.

Local officials said the top-down approach was the wrong one.

“Mandates cannot be uniformly implemented! All counties have different priorities and circumstances,” one was quoted as saying in the report.

One order barred local governments from issuing orders or laws regarding COVID-19 without the approval of the state.

Some other officials backed how the executive office led from the front.

“I do believe that the Governor’s Office directions were quite good,” a state official was cited as saying.

In a statement responding to the new report, a spokesperson for Mr. Cuomo defended the former governor’s approach.

“While this report cuts through the political garbage that has consumed the nursing home issue and points out how circumstances were consistent nationwide, it’s ridiculous to suggest that this pandemic response be treated the same as H1N1 or Legionnaires outbreaks,” Rich Azzopardi, the spokesman, said.

“We all lived through this and no rational person can believe that a coordinated centralized response is inferior to having decisions made by a gaggle of faceless bureaucrats,” he added.

Ms. Hochul, who had been Mr. Cuomo’s lieutenant, inherited the job following Mr. Cuomo’s resignation in August 2021 and was reelected the following year.

The audit also examined nursing homes, where some 15,000 people died after a state executive order forced nursing homes to readmit people with COVID-19, provided they were deemed medically stable, as a way to relieve hospitals of some patients.

While that order and other policies related to nursing homes were “rushed and uncoordinated,” they “ultimately provided appropriate guidance that was consistent with universal best practices in congregate care and accurately reflected the best understanding of the scientific community at the time they were issued,” the Olson Group said.

Auditors said New York state correctly took a “proactive stance” on many pandemic-era measures, such as vaccinating the elderly and mass testing, and that the outcomes in nursing homes “were not substantially inconsistent with overall performance in such facilities nationwide.”

The report was published after Mr. Cuomo, in testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives, blamed the nursing home order on an unknown staffer and said he would still issue the same order, knowing what he does now.

Mr. Cuomo said he wished communication on the order had been better.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.