A full, honest review

Gov. Kathy Hochul needs to insure that an analysis of New York’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is free of political and private agendas.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to take a thorough look at the state’s handling of the COVID -19 pandemic is the right thing to do — if she can keep politics out of it.

By “politics,” we don’t mean just the obvious kind — like the sort of political agenda that her predecessor Andrew M. Cuomo and those around him followed in trying to obfuscate the true number of deaths of nursing home residents early on in the pandemic. We also mean the more subtle and less public kinds of politics that take place among public agencies and private enterprises anxious to paint their work in the best light, and hide their mistakes and shortcomings.

There’s reason for some optimism here. While Ms. Hochul was the lieutenant governor through much of the pandemic, it was Mr. Cuomo, really, who led New York through the worst of it — the months of spreading infections and rising deaths, economic shutdown, strained hospitals, no vaccines. Ms. Hochul doesn’t own the state’s performance on Mr. Cuomo’s watch, and should have no reason to engage in the kind of obstruction and manipulation he engaged in to protect the nationally admired image he had cultivated, not to mention a $5.1 million book deal that’s become a scandal of its own.

While some may believe that after more than two years there is little new to be learned, in reality there may be much we don’t know and more that needs to be put in context, which some passage of time and change of administration may allow. While many aspects of Mr. Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic drew public approval, his obsession with his image ought to leave us all skeptical of having the full picture. And the cracks in that image that we already know about should give us pause — the behind-thescenes effort to put the nursing home numbers in the best light, the stonewalling of the Legislature and news organizations on full death data, the wildly varying numbers that have since come out, the use of state Health Department employees and State Police to give Mr. Cuomo’s family members priority testing.

The need for an uncompromising review is clear. The pandemic isn’t over. Cases have surged again, and while there’s a sense that we are better prepared thanks to vaccines and better treatments, there are red flags such as the low numbers of available intensive care beds in Central New York, the Finger Lakes,and several Capital Region hospitals including Albany Medical Center and Ellis. If there are better approaches, we should know what they are now — and certainly well before the next pandemic, whenever it comes.

This review could help inform the ongoing arguments between the state and health care facility operators about minimum staffing levels and allocation of resources in nursing homes and hospitals.

We need, in short, an honest look not just at best practices worth emulating, but bad and worst practices that should not be repeated. It will take a team of professionals without a personal interest in putting things in the most favorable light possible to achieve that. Who Ms. Hochul picks for this task, then, will reveal the sincerity of her effort.