Governor Andrew Cuomo must have little memory, either that or he is simply trying to distract attention from his administration’s deadly failures of the coronavirus by criticizing President Trump’s many saving actions.
During a recent press conference, Cuomo gave Trump another cheap opportunity, arguing that the president’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was somehow worse than the infamous Watergate scandal.
“If you look at the facts, the facts clearly demonstrate that Trump was wrong from day one, and New Yorkers have been right from day one,” Cuomo boasted.
The problem is that Cuomo has been flatly and tragically wrong about the pandemic. And unlike Trump’s “scandal” that exists only in Cuomo’s imagination, Cuomo’s failure of leadership has been very real. More people have died from COVID-19 in New York than in any other state, at least 6,000 of them in our nursing homes. That is not something to be proud of.
On March 25, the Cuomo Department of Health issued a mandate requiring New York nursing homes to admit patients with coronavirus, a move that alarmed infectious disease experts across the country.
“If you introduce 4,500 people sick with life-threatening illness into a vulnerable and notoriously imperfectly watched population, people can die,” said Dr. Charles Branas, chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia. .
The executive director of the Society for Post-Agute and Long-Term Care Medicine, Christopher Laxton, also strongly condemned Cuomo for not consulting clinical experts before implementing the policy.
After criticism, the controversial mandate mysteriously disappeared from the Health Department website, but it took Cuomo nearly two months to officially review the death order. At that point, the damage was already done. Many New York nursing homes had become breeding grounds for the virus, which turned out to be particularly dangerous for the elderly and infirm, exactly the type of people who reside in nursing homes.
The Health Department has now released its own report defending the March 25 order, but my colleagues and I are preparing for a public hearing and are calling for an independent investigation into the Cuomo administration’s mandate to make sure we get the truth. complete and unadorned.
The people of New York, the staff of nursing homes and the families of coronavirus victims deserve real responses from their governor, not partisan deviations and gunshots.
Meanwhile, in contrast to Cuomo, President Trump has done his best to help New York win its battle against the virus, providing federal assistance when we need it most. For example, the White House deployed a Navy hospital ship, USNS Comfort, in Manhattan, which Cuomo himself admitted “not only brought comfort but also saved lives” in New York City.
Under the direction of the President, the Army Corps of Engineers worked closely with state authorities to convert the Javits Convention Center and Westchester County Center into dedicated COVID-19 hospitals.
Trump also insured thousands of fans for New York (which, thankfully, we ultimately didn’t need) and millions of items of personal protective equipment for our first responders and healthcare workers. Our heroes couldn’t trust Cuomo or Mayor Bill de Blasio, but they could count on Trump.
Not long ago, the New York governor openly praised the president’s response to the pandemic, encouraging that Trump “delivered New York” and that “overall [his strategy] It has worked “.
After the outbreak of the pandemic, I was careful not to issue an early judgment against our elected leaders and their handling of the coronavirus. Losing people’s lives should never become a partisan problem, but Cuomo has made it clear that he is fully involved in the politicization of this virus, even when he has already killed more than 32,000 of our fellow New Yorkers.
Cuomo’s desperate attempts to blame the federal government for its own failures should not distract us from the facts: New Yorkers must hold Governor Cuomo and his administration accountable for their deadly failures.
Kevin Byrne represents the 94th Assembly District, including parts of Westchester and Putnam counties, and is the highest-ranking minority member of the Assembly Health Committee.
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