On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) stated that he doesn’t wish he could redo his coronavirus nursing home policy and that “it was wholly non-consequential.”
Host Anderson Cooper asked, “You have gotten criticism for, there were more than 6,000 people who died in nursing homes in New York from COVID, some of your critics have pointed to a directive back in March releasing COVID patients into nursing homes as the root cause of the high death toll. Given what we now know, is that something that you wish you would go — could go back and do over again?”
Cuomo responded, “No. The — that was — that’s been seized on by political opponents, frankly. They’re doing it with all the Democratic states, all the Democratic governors. But it was wholly non-consequential. And we did a full report, it’s — by the numbers, it’s non-consequential. People in nursing homes died because this virus preyed on the sick and nursing homes were the feeding ground. When we first met this virus in the state of Washington it was in a nursing home. And you look at any state, many people in nursing homes passed away because they were the most vulnerable population. Here in New York, we’re number 46, Anderson, out of 50 states in terms of percentage of deaths in nursing homes. 46 out of 50, and we had it worse than anyone. Because we were ambushed by this virus because the federal government kept calling it the China virus, meanwhile, the virus came here from Europe and they didn’t even know it. The virus left China, went to Italy, France, Spain and came here from Italy, France, Spain and we never had a warning. So, we’re number 46 out of 50 in terms of percentage of deaths. We have tracked what happened in nursing homes, and the infection went into nursing homes from the working staff when there was community spread, back before anyone realized anything, when the federal government was telling us that there was no such thing as asymptomatic spread, that you had to have symptoms to spread it. That was wrong also. So, nursing home staff brought it in, and that was the result.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett