New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) says he takes responsibility for “every bad decision” in the state’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
But when faced with criticism over the state’s policy that sent COVID-19 patients to nursing homes, he said the state was simply following federal guidance that said, “Nursing homes should admit any individuals from hospitals where Covid is present.”
During an interview on WAMC on Thursday, Cuomo was asked by host Alan Chartock, “Do you ever change your mind, governor, about anything based on what these reporters are saying?”
Chartock continued, “I think, about the nursing home situation, you got a lot of criticism from them, they asked one question after another. Is there anything you could point to in which you say ‘Ok, they really sort of have convinced me I’m on the wrong track here.'”
“No,” Cuomo responded. “The nursing home is an unfortunate situation on two levels. Number one, people in nursing homes died. … The nursing home [issue] is pure politics, the Republicans in Congress they think there’s a vulnerability.”
He claimed that Republicans only set letters about COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes to states with Democratic governors. He also noted that New York ranks number 35 in terms of nursing home deaths from the virus per capita.
A Pro Publica review of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes found that virus killed roughly 6,000 nursing home residents or roughly 6% of the more than 100,000 nursing residents statewide.
That number is higher than Florida — which has a Republican governor and did not adopt the same nursing home policy — where 1.6% of its 73,000 nursing home residents died from the virus.
It is also higher than California, where 2% of that state’s 103,000 nursing home residents died.
“The nursing home thing it’s just all politics and it’s, frankly, the New York Post, and Goodwin … this is their way of defending Trump,” Cuomo said as he claimed the criticism of the state’s nursing home policy was designed to deflect criticism of President Donald Trump’s handling of the outbreak.
“They don’t want to talk about what the federal government did on Covid. So they want to attack the Democrats for nursing home deaths. It’s the same M.O., just distract, you know create a shiny object to take attention off what they don’t want you to focus on,” Cuomo said.
Cuomo continued to blast the Trump administration’s response to the outbreak, which he said was responsible for the high number of coronavirus cases in the state.
“We had the worst case in the United States because the federal government had no idea what was going on,” Cuomo said.
He asked, “Where was the CDC? And where was the NIH? And where was everybody?”
