By Dan Murphy
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been praised for his handling of the Coronavirus in the Empire State, but he has also been criticized for the fact that 6,600 seniors in Nursing Homes in NY have died from COVID.
Last week, Cuomo appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to promote his new book “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.” During the interview, Morning Joe commentator Willie Geist challenged Cuomo for his handling of COVID concerning nursing homes, asking “Was it a mistake to send those COVID positive patients back into nursing homes?”
Cuomo responded “Here’s the first lesson for this lesson, Willie,” he said. “How did you not know the virus was coming to the United States? They call it the China virus. It wasn’t the China virus. It was the European virus.. the reason the numbers of COVID cases in New York was so high because the virus moved for months undetected, and the president didn’t have a plan.”
Geist followed up, asking about his administration’s order to send COVID-positive seniors back into the state’s nursing homes. “There was never a directive that said: ‘We will send COVID-positive people back to nursing homes. The directive, which was modeled on the federal directive, said that you cannot discriminate against someone who had COVID-19″, said Cuomo.
“One of the things I find reprehensible about it, Willie, is the president did create that impression, which is cruel,” said Cuomo, adding “It’s cruel to say to the families who lost people in nursing homes, ‘Well, this could have been prevented by a different government policy.’ It makes their pain worse. It is not true. If you want to rewind all the tape, we should have been testing staff before they walked into a nursing home. That is true. And that’s back in March when we didn’t have any tests. We were told asymptomatic spread was impossible, that you had to have a symptom. So, the nursing home workers without symptoms were allowed in,” said Cuomo.
“That was bad information that we received. That’s how you would have really prevented it. Our health dept would have not in hindsight followed the federal directive—knowing the political issue it was going to create,” said Cuomo.
Geist followed up, asking, “I mean, your Department of Health wrote the March 25 advisory, to just to put a fine point on it, do you take any responsibility for the 6,600 deaths in nursing homes in the state of New York?”
“Look, I take responsibility for every death in the State of New York. I don’t care, frankly, if — if it’s my fault, not my fault, if it’s the federal government, if it’s God that did it. I’m responsible, I’m in charge and I’ve never run away from that. But I also want to make sure we have facts here,” said Cuomo.
