New York dispatched additional than 6,300 recovering coronavirus clients into vulnerable nursing homes through the top of the pandemic, officers claimed this 7 days.

The transfers have been made under a now-scrapped, extremely criticized policy that barred nursing homes from refusing to just take in COVID-19 clients — a directive from the Cuomo administration intending to no cost up hospital beds for the sickest people.

New York is now residence to a single of the highest nursing home death tolls in the country, with a lot more than 6,400 fatalities in properties and long-expression treatment amenities tied to the virus.

But Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration argue that the controversial coverage is not to blame for the tragic determine.

Condition Health and fitness Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker as a substitute reported the virus was unfold by the 20,000 infected house staffers, numerous of whom stored likely to function in March and April unaware that they had been unwell — findings outlined in a DOH report issued Monday.

“Facts issue. And all those are the specifics,” Zucker said through a information convention Monday.

The report backs statements Cuomo experienced been generating for months that ill staff members, not transported people, experienced induced the deadly unfold via nursing homes.

Critics in the condition Legislature have challenged the report’s reliability, with lawmakers arranging to shift in advance with general public hearings on the nursing household dying, NY1 reported.

Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), condemned the report as a “cover-up.”

“This is a conflict of desire for the well being department to look into its possess bad selections,” Kim explained on Monday.

“For them to say that the determination of sending COVID-19 individuals from hospitals into nursing did not lead to rising bacterial infections is ludicrous,” Kim said.

Cuomo senior adviser Richard Azzopardi clapped back at some of the criticism Monday.

“Once all over again, Ron Kim doesn’t know what he’s speaking about and evidently does not care about embarrassing himself,” Azzopardi mentioned at the time. “The DOH report was peer-reviewed by professionals at Mount Sinai and Northwell Health and fitness, and it’s disturbing that this politician is refusing to feel points, science and dates on a calendar.”

With Article wires