**EDITOR’S NOTE** Assembly Minority letter attached below as PDF

Assemblyman Chris Tague (R,C,I,Ref-Schoharie) joined his Minority colleagues in a letter to president Trump requesting he help them obtain data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the state, including the number of deaths that occurred in nursing homes. For months now, several Minority members of the Assembly including Tague have written to the director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, requesting this information, but have not been provided with a firm number of COVID-19 fatalities in New York state. During a hearing in August, NYS Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker refused to provide this information as well, stating he was concerned the information could be inaccurate.

“What happened in our state is nothing short of a tragedy, and the people of New York who won’t be able to spend the holidays with a loved one they’ve lost deserve answers about just what happened in our state during this pandemic, both in terms of causation and outcome,” said Tague. “While I am hopeful our president will assist us in obtaining this crucial data, it is shameful we’ve had to fight for months across all levels of government to get basic information about an unprecedented loss of life across our state. As I’ve been saying for months, this isn’t about pointing fingers or politics, it’s about giving the families who lost people they love closure and learning what happened to cause this tragedy so that we can be sure it never happens again.”