A state-ordered study of New York’s pandemic response has finally appeared, and it’s shaping up as a minor disaster of its own. Released on June 14, the 262-page “after-action review” from the Olson Group, a Virginia-based consulting firm, has proven to be thinly researched, poorly written, sloppily presented and riddled with factual errors large and small. It falls embarrassingly short of the deep, authoritative analysis that Gov. Hochul promised — and which the state desperately needs to arm itself against future viruses. She should declare the report unacceptable, demand a refund and launch a real after-action review — by joining with the Legislature to establish an independent pandemic response commission. Olson gets some things right, such as calling out former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for assuming too much decision-making authority, which sidelined entire branches of government with relevant expertise and experience. Yet it also gets too many things wrong to be taken seriously. A prime example is the report’s garbled analysis of the Cuomo administration’s handling of nursing homes, which included ordering them to accept COVID-infected patients and then refusing for months to give a complete count of how many residents had died. The report baselessly asserts that understating the nursing home death toll — by omitting thousands of residents who died after transfers to hospitals — was a matter of following “state law.” There was never any such law. To the contrary, the administration’s failure to share public records was a violation of the Freedom of Information Law, as a court later ruled in a lawsuit by the Empire Center and the Government Justice Center. Olson also bizarrely faults Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office for allegedly failing to consult the Health Department about a 2021 audit, which criticized the department’s handling of the pandemic in nursing homes. This drew an unusual public rebuke from DiNapoli’s office, which said it had, in fact, engaged closely with the department, holding 20 meetings with 29 employees during the year-long audit process. A 14-page response from the agency was also printed as part of the audit itself — raising the question of how thoroughly Olson had read it. Asked about the comptroller’s complaint, the firm told the Albany Times Union it could not comment because of a non-disclosure agreement in its contract with the state — another red flag about the credibility of the whole process. Further howlers are found throughout the document: Describing Cuomo’s reopening policies in May 2020, the report refers to businesses asking customers for “proof of vaccination.” Vaccines did not become available until December 2020. A chart tracking daily deaths from COVID-19 shows a major spike in the fall of 2021, which is not consistent with data from other sources. In a listing of 33 agencies and organizations surveyed for the report, 10 are incorrectly named or misspelled. The report’s flaws go beyond a lack of fact-checking or proof-reading. Its research relied too heavily on the opinions and perceptions of New York insiders, including government officials and people in the state’s business and nonprofit sectors who were directly affected by their policies. The authors should have done more to consult outside experts with a national or global perspective — and to compare New York’s actions with responses in other states and countries. The report framed the state’s crisis as beginning on March 1, 2020, when a first COVID case was confirmed by lab testing. However the virus probably arrived in late January or early February, and that the first wave of infections likely peaked in mid-March. This suggests that Cuomo and other officials were too nonchalant at first, and may have overreacted later on. A serious after-action review would have explored the implications of that changed narrative, and focused on how New York can avoid being blind-sided by future outbreaks. The report also revealed that unnamed “key officials” refused to talk because of concerns about legal liability. This one is on Hochul, who failed to endow the investigation with the subpoena power necessary to compel testimony, The public deserves to know which of their leaders shirked the duty to cooperate. More importantly, the public deserves a better investigation. Legislation to establish an independent commission — led by bona fide experts and fully empowered to subpoena witnesses and documents — has been introduced in both the Assembly and Senate. Despite high-level negotiations in the closing days of the legislative session, the proposal did not move forward in either house. That bill should be passed and signed at the earliest opportunity. A disaster that killed 83,000 New Yorkers and disrupted the lives of millions more warrants more than a shoddy consultant’s report. Hammond is senior fellow for health policy at the Empire Center.