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

Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R,C,I-Batavia) rallied alongside his Assembly Minority colleagues in a letter to President Trump requesting that he assist them in obtaining data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the state, including those in nursing homes. For months now, we 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. In a hearing in August, NYS Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker also refused to provide this data, stating he was concerned it would not be fully accurate.

“When thousands of people die, families deserve answers,” said Hawley. “Giving the families that suffered irreplaceable losses closure on this matter is the least we could do for them, and we need to know as much about this tragedy as we can to assure we never endure loss like this again. For these reasons, I ask the president to direct the CDC to release this information and give New Yorkers the answers they deserve regarding this unthinkable loss of life.”