Participants in a "People's Motorcade" stop at the Trump International Hotel to deliver fake body bags during a protest against the administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington, DC
Participants in a "People's Motorcade" stop at the Trump International Hotel to deliver fake body bags during a protest against the administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington, DC AFP / ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

KEY POINTS

  • Video shows 20 bodies being removed from a Harlem nursing home in New York State
  • State data allegedly shows only 5 deaths from the facility due to COVID-19
  • Gov. Andrew Cuomo defends his nursing home policies during the pandemic

In a video obtained by the NY Daily News, at least 20 bodies in black body bags were seen being taken out of Harlem Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in the last month during the coronavirus pandemic.

The news site also claimed that the state Health Department only showed five coronavirus-related deaths in the facility.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that the reports from the more than 1,100 nursing homes and adult care facilities are a “work in progress.”

New York state has reported that more than 1,700 people who died in nursing homes since March 1 are presumed to have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Cuomo faced criticism when he ordered nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients and backlash when he reported, in his regular coronavirus briefing Tuesday (May 5), the additional 1,700 deaths.

“Everybody wants to point at the nursing homes now,” Cuomo said during the briefing. “We knew the nursing homes were going to be target. And whatever we do they will be a target.”

New York does not include the number of patients transferred outside of nursing homes and adult care facilities into hospitals who later died there.

60% of the deaths in New York state come from people aged 70 years old and above. 89% of all cases in the case include at least one other complication including diabetes and hypertension.

Cuomo acknowledged that even with the restrictions his state has implemented and the medical supplies distributed statewide, “All it takes is one person to bring that virus in [nursing homes]. And you do everything you can, but at the same time, you can’t do everything.”

New York is one of the states worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Data from a state-run tracking website show that the state has seen 321,192 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and 19,645 deaths as of May 6.

New York was so overwhelmed by the number of initial cases that they deployed mobile morgues in April to deal with the pile of bodies. Many of the deceased are temporarily stored in freezer trucks.

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