By far, one of the dumbest policy errors made during the coronavirus outbreak in the United States was New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s order directing patients infected with COVID-19 into nursing homes.
Even early on, medical experts and immunologists understood that older Americans and those with preexisting health conditions were far more susceptible not only to contracting coronavirus but dying from it.
That includes the numbskull Cuomo.
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But no matter, the lord and master of New York, in his infinite wisdom, ordered nursing homes to take in coronavirus patients anyway in late March, and he maintained it even after some eldercare facilities pleaded with the state to either reverse the decision or send supplies because they could not keep patients safe.
One of them was Cobble Hill Health Center Chief Executive Donny Tuchman. The Wall Street Journal reported in mid-April that Tuchman appealed to New York state officials earlier in the month because “there is no way for us to prevent the spread under these conditions.”
The WSJ noted further:
In return, state officials emailed guidance on how to conserve supplies during a shortage, and a reminder to submit requests daily to New York City’s Office of Emergency Management, a review of the email chain shows. Mr. Tuchman said his appeal to the state to send suspected virus patients to new hospitals on a U.S. Navy ship and at the Javits Center didn’t yield results.
Cuomo could have directed coronavirus patients to either of those two Trump administration-provided medical care assets.
But he didn’t. Instead, he put the onus back on nursing homes. “Nobody is to blame” for the situation, he said, “but they have to deal with the situation.”
That’s not true, governor. Your state’s nursing homes were dealing with a disease they were not equipped to deal with on your order.
In end, according to an Associated Press analysis published in the latter part of May, as many as 4,300 nursing home patients died from coronavirus.
Now, Mr. ‘No one is to blame’ is indeed blaming someone – the Trump administration.
“So let’s look at the facts, right, rather than the political rhetoric,” Cuomo told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle after she asked if he takes responsibility for the order and subsequent deaths. “Yes, we had more people die in nursing homes than anywhere else – because we had more people die. Because the federal government missed the boat and never told us that this virus was coming from Europe and not from China.
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“And January, February, March – before they did the European travel ban – three million people came from Europe and brought the virus to New York and the federal government didn’t know and the federal government and the CDC and all of them failed to handle this pandemic and warn this nation,” Cuomo added. “So New York had more cases, more deaths and more deaths in nursing homes because that’s who the virus affects. It affects senior citizens. We know that.”
Regardless of where the virus came from, Cuomo made the decision to put coronavirus patients among his state’s most vulnerable citizens.
He should be criminally charged for that. But he won’t be.
