Cuomo Dodges on Whether Sending COVID Patients into Nursing Homes Was a Mistake

On Monday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Today,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) dodged on whether it was a mistake to send COVID-positive patients back into nursing homes.

Co-host Willie Geist asked, “So, with 33,000, nearly, people dead in the state of New York, what have you learned, as you write about in the book, about the early stages that you can apply to later? For example, was it a mistake to send those COVID-positive patients back into nursing homes?”

After Cuomo criticized the federal government’s response, Geist cut in to ask, “Governor, did you make any mistakes in this process? You’re talking about the federal government. What about you?”

Cuomo stated, “Yes. That was the first point, was the federal government missed it coming here. Second, we were the first state to do a mask mandate, Willie, I should have done it earlier. The experts were saying the masks didn’t work. Common sense said the masks would work, and I should have done that earlier. Testing, we got up testing as fast as we could. In retrospect, we should have understood that some virus like this would come back after MERS and SARS and had more sophistication for testing, that it took this nation seven months to come up with a real testing regimen, and we’re still not doing it, that was a mistake.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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