“Today’s nursing home hearing could have provided some of the answers missing after Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker’s disappearing act last week; instead, New Yorkers got another half-hearted performance sorely lacking in detail.

Majority politicians in the Legislature have the ability to subpoena documents and testimony pertinent to the deaths of 6,500 nursing home residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet they chose to, instead, host a rubberstamped performance featuring little new information. They failed those who died and their grieving families.

The fact remains – we do not know what happened in New York nursing homes. Majority politicians in the Senate and Assembly know this, and if they were committed to finding the truth and ensuring these grave mistakes are not made again in the future, they would push past these two choreographed meetings and demand substantive answers at subsequent proceedings.

Until there is a more complete picture of what happened, the Assembly Minority Conference will continue to fight for the families of those who died in New York nursing homes. They deserve much more than what has been presented to them to date.”