New NY governor adds 12,000 deaths to publicized COVID tally

Delivering another blow to what's left of former governor Andrew Cuomo's legacy, New York's new governor acknowledged on her first day in office that the state has had nearly 12,000 more deaths from COVID-19 than Cuomo told the public.

"The public deserves a clear, honest picture of what's happening. And that's whether it's good or bad, they need to know the truth. And that's how we restore confidence," Governor Kathy Hochul said on NPR.

In its first daily update on the outbreak on Tuesday evening, Hochul's office reported that nearly 55,400 people have died of the coronavirus in New York based on death certificate data submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That's up from about 43,400 that Cuomo reported to the public as of Monday, his last day in office. The Democrat who was once widely acclaimed for his leadership during the COVID-19 outbreak resigned in the face of an impeachment drive after being accused of sexually harassing at least 11 women, allegations he disputed.

The higher number is not entirely new. Federal health officials and some academic institutions tracking COVID-19 deaths in the US have been using the higher tally for many months because of known gaps in the data Cuomo had been choosing to publicize.

But Hochul, who was lieutenant governor before being propelled to the highest office, said it is vital to be fully transparent about the numbers.

"There's a lot of things that weren't happening, and I'm going to make them happen," Hochul said on Wednesday on MSNBC. "Transparency will be the hallmark of my administration."

Cuomo's critics long charged he was manipulating coronavirus data to burnish his image.