Janice Dean: Cuomo, top aides 'need to go to jail' for nursing home death cover-up

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Janice Dean blasts Cuomo for covering up coronavirus deaths

Fox News Senior Meteorologist Janice Dean rips New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for covering up coronavirus deaths.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo "needs to go to jail" for underreporting coronavirus-related nursing home deaths, Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean said on Friday.

"We knew that he was covering up the numbers and now we're getting more and more information and facts that this is true," Dean told "Fox & Friends." 

Dean said that "Melissa DeRosa, his top aide, was in on it to help Cuomo cover up the numbers, to downplay them." 

"She was the one in that Democratic lawmaker meeting behind closed doors, apologizing to Democratic lawmakers: ‘I'm so sorry we kept this information from you. We were afraid of the DOJ investigation.’"

CUOMO ADVISERS ALTERED REPORT ON CORONAVIRUS NURSING-HOME DEATHS: WSJ

Top advisers to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo influenced state health officials to remove data from a public report that showed coronavirus-related nursing-home deaths in the state had exceeded numbers previously acknowledged by the administration, a bombshell report says.

Details about the July report were disclosed Thursday night in a story first published by The Wall Street Journal. The final report focused only on nursing-home residents who died inside those facilities and did not include nursing-home residents who were transferred to hospitals after becoming sick, the Journal reported.

That means the state’s reported tally of 6,432 nursing-home resident deaths was significantly lower than the actual nursing-home death toll, sources with knowledge of the state report’s preparation told the newspaper.

State officials now place the nursing-home and long-term-care facility death toll in New York at more than 15,000 residents, the Journal reported. The number represents deaths since March 2020 of residents confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus or presumed to have contracted it, the report said.

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Dean, whose in-laws died of COVID-19 in New York long-term care facilities, said, "They have never apologized to the families, 15,000 families that deserve an apology. The only thing this governor is going to be sorry for is the fact that he got caught. And you know what? He needs to go to jail and all of those around him. There is no ifs, and's or but's here."

Cuomo has defended his administration’s actions regarding the nursing-home deaths, saying state officials had followed federal guidance and worked to manage hospital capacity as the virus spread, the Journal reported.

Fox News' Dom Calicchio contributed to this report.