Academy still silent on Cuomo Emmy award following nursing home scandal

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The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences continues to remain silent on whether it will rescind New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's award after his administration confirmed that thousands more nursing home residents died of COVID-19 than the state's official tallies previously acknowledged.

For the last two weeks, the TV awards organization has failed to respond to Fox News' questions for comment on the status of Cuomo's Emmy, even after his trusted top aide, Melissa DeRosa, shared the bombshell revelation on Thursday that the administration hid unfavorable information about the state's nursing home coronavirus deaths out of concern that it "was going to be used against us."

Speaking to Democratic leaders during a recent conference call, DeRosa said governor’s office officials "froze" after then-President Donald Trump turned the pandemic into "a giant political football" and began tweeting about the state’s shoddy handling, the New York Post first reported.

Cuomo received the International Emmy Founders Award in November "in recognition of his leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and his masterful use of TV to inform and calm people around the world."

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The Academy said the award is given to those who "cross cultural boundaries to touch our common humanity."

Past recipients include former Vice President Al Gore, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg.

Cuomo's award sparked significant backlash at the time because of the governor’s controversial nursing home policy. In March, Cuomo issued a mandate requiring nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients released from hospitals.

The idea was to prepare for a scenario where hospitals would get overwhelmed and be forced to discharge patients to go back to nursing homes. Cuomo reversed the directive in May, saying that hospitals could not send patients back to nursing homes unless they had tested negative.

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The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has yet to address the status of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Emmy award following bombshell revelations his administration hid unfavorable information about the state's nursing home coroanvirus deaths. (Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The mandate has been linked to the deaths of thousands of elderly residents -- something Cuomo’s administration has long denied. But in late January, his administration confirmed that thousands more nursing home residents died from the virus than had previously acknowledged.

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The announcement came after months of the state refusing to divulge its true numbers, showing that at least 12,743 long-term care residents died of the virus as of Jan. 19 -- far greater than the official tally of 8,505 on that day.

Those numbers undermined Cuomo's frequent argument that the criticism of his handling of the virus in nursing homes was part of a political "blame game," and it was a vindication for thousands of families who believed their loved ones were being omitted from counts to advance the governor's image as a pandemic hero.

Cuomo, who last fall released a book touting his leadership in dealing with the virus, has not held back from using New York's lower nursing home death count to make the argument that his state is doing better than others in caring for those in such facilities.

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"There's also no doubt that we're in this hyper-political environment so everybody wants to point fingers," Cuomo told CBS "This Morning" in October. "New York, actually, we're number 46 out of 50 in terms of percentage of deaths in nursing homes ... it's not a predominantly New York problem."

Fox News'  Bradford Betz and Evie Fordham contributed to this report, as well as The Associated Press.