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NYS earns high marks for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic under Governors Cuomo, Hochul

Commonwealth Fund website

A national organization focused on the quality, accessibility and cost of healthcare says New York did very well in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite being hit hard. The Commonwealth Fund’s scorecard reviewed all 50 States and took into consideration several healthcare measures to combat COVID-19 deaths and other preventable causes such as drugs and alcohol, suicide, and rising healthcare costs. Senior Scientist David Radley from Manlius tracks the data based on a number of criteria including the mortality rate.

“New York ranked 10th overall out of 50 States on all 50 measures but, on a composite score of 7 measures that were specific to the pandemic, New York ranked 16th”. 

Radley says the findings are surprising considering how hard hit New York City was in the beginning with overloaded hospitals and how COVID tragically impacted poor neighborhoods.

“We looked at how many days during the pandemic were ICU beds within the State full at 80 percent capacity or higher and how many days report critical staffing shortages.  We looked at overall mortality rate in the state and each state between February 2020 and March 2022; when we look at how New York paired on all of those things… again, pretty well considering.”

He adds that New York ranked very high in getting people vaccinated against the virus.

“New York has one of the fastest cases of vaccinations of any State in the country.  New York ranked 10th in terms of how quickly it was able to reach a 70 percent vacation threshold.  So, I think that’s just the result of a really strong push to get people vaccinated.” 

The organization hopes a lot can be learned from the data in terms of how New York and other States will be able to improve should other crises happen in the future. Click here to view Commonwealth Fund’s “State Health System Performance 2022 Scorecard” and full report.