State Health Department documents from June 2020, newly unearthed by congressional investigators, appear to show harmful effects from a controversial order requiring nursing homes to admit Covid-positive patients.

The documents would seem to undermine if not contradict the Cuomo administration’s long-standing claim that the March 25, 2020 order had no significant impact on the health of nursing homes residents during the pandemic’s first wave.

They also indicate that state officials were aware of unflattering evidence about the policy but withheld it from the public through years of controversy.

Issued when Covid cases were rising rapidly in New York City, the March 25 order from the Health Department said nursing homes “must comply with expedited receipt” of patients being discharged from hospitals, and barred homes from turning away admissions who were Covid-positive. More than 9,000 transfers occurred under the policy, which was in effect until May 10, 2020.

Charts emailed on June 7, 2020, to then-Health Commissioner Howard Zucker indicated that homes which admitted infected patients under the order suffered higher Covid death rates than facilities with no such admissions.

A chart reflecting statewide data shows a mortality rate of 8.1 percent for homes with “some [Covid-positive] admissions or readmissions,” which was almost double the 4.1 percent rate for homes with “no admissions or readmissions” (see Figure 1).

Within New York City, the rates were 6.8 percent for homes with admissions, compared to 4.3 percent for homes with no admissions (see Figure 2).

The documents came to light on Monday when the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic posted the findings of its investigation into the March 25 order.

Cuomo is due to testify at a public hearing before the subcommittee on Tuesday, Sept. 10 in Washington.

The newly disclosed charts were part of an email sent to Zucker on June 7, 2020, by Dr. Eleanor Adams, a Health Department official. The subcommittee posted the 22-page email on Monday, along with transcripts of interviews with Cuomo and nine former members of his administration.

Earlier on June 7, investigators said, the governor’s office had decided to issue a report defending its nursing home policy and tasked the Health Department with providing relevant information.

Adams sent Zucker a set of “talking points” in defense of the March 25 policy along with a slide deck of data she had previously gathered.

Adams argued that the order “was not likely a driver of the number of deaths in nursing homes” based on timing – because, for example, the number of deaths peaked earlier than the number of Covid-positive admissions.

Her attached slide deck included data backing up this argument – but also included the charts showing higher death rates in homes that accepted the Covid-positive transfers.

The charts further analyzed mortality rates by breaking homes into six categories based on how many admissions they received.

Statewide, homes in the highest category – where the admissions amounted to 50 percent of their residents or more – showed the highest mortality rate of 10.2 percent.

Within New York City, the highest mortality was seen in the homes with the second-highest rate of admissions, amounting to 40 to 50 percent of their resident populations.

This evidence is generally consistent with an analysis published by the Empire Center in February 2021, which found a statistically significant correlation between the Covid-positive admissions under the March 25 order and higher mortality rates in the homes that received them.

That analysis suggested that the policy was not the sole or primary source of Covid in nursing homes – but likely made a bad situation worse.

Adams’ talking points in modified form became the basis of a much-criticized report released by the Cuomo administration on July 6, 2020, which asserted the March 25 order was “not a significant factor in nursing home fatalities.” Although it was published in the name of the Health Department, the congressional probe – like an earlier impeachment investigation by the Assembly – found that the report was edited and rewritten by officials in the governor’s office, including Cuomo himself.

Among other changes, the governor’s office removed data reflecting nursing home residents who had died after being sent to hospitals with Covid – a decision that reduced the disclosed death toll by about one-third, from 10,000 to 6,400.

Also missing from the July 6 report was any comparison of nursing homes’ death rates by the number of admissions they received – including the data and charts from Adams’ slide deck.