I’ll take the story below a step further. Cuomo will end up going to jail for murder. He purposely sent Covid infected patients to nursing homes to help pump up the death numbers.
By Tom Wrobleski
January 29, 2021
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – Whenever Gov. Andrew Cuomo during one of his press conference gives an update on coronavirus deaths in the state, he solemnly says that those victims are in his thoughts and prayers.
When will Cuomo say the same about all those victims who died in state nursing homes early in the pandemic? When will Cuomo accept even a shred of responsibility for that carnage?
Because now there is no doubt: Cuomo and state Health Department commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker have a lot to answer for when it comes to the tragic death toll in nursing homes.
And it’s not right-wingers saying it. It’s not the Trumpers. It’s not Cuomo’s political enemies.
It’s a fellow Democrat, state Attorney General Letitia James.
James the other day issued a scathing report saying that Cuomo, Zucker et al had vastly undercounted the number of people who died in nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.
The state puts the number at 8,711. James’ report makes the number more like 13,000.
Importantly, James says that the infamous Cuomo mandate from last March 25, which said that nursing homes had to accept COVID patients from hospitals without even being permitted to test them, may have put nursing home residents at increased risk.
James also said that conditions at certain nursing homes, including lax infection control and poor staff ratings, also contributed to deaths.
But ignore that window dressing. The report’s main target is clear: Cuomo.
It all has to sting. Not just because James is a fellow Dem and should be smart enough to fear Cuomo’s wrath, but because Cuomo himself used to be state attorney general. He knows the power of the office. He knows the impact something like this can have.
Cuomo can spend his days telling New Yorkers that the state was “ambushed” by COVID-19, even though anybody with an IQ above two zeros could plainly see that the virus posed a threat to the United States well before it got here.
The governor can demand billions of dollars from President Joe Biden in order to solve the state’s budget woes even though New York was already billions of dollars in the hole before the pandemic hit.
He can write books about how his leadership saved New York from the virus, even though cases again surged here after the book was published.
He can pontificate day after exhausting day at press conferences, railing at former President Donald Trump and Washington Republicans, scolding New Yorkers in high-infection regions for spoiling the state’s COVID-19 numbers with their reckless behavior.
But none of this misdirection can save Cuomo from the fact that he has something to answer for when it comes to the coronavirus carnage seen in state nursing homes. The curtain has been pulled back. The wizard has been exposed.
Cuomo on Friday typically tried to brush the whole thing off as a political attack birthed by the Trump administration. He said that it didn’t matter if people died in the hospital or in the nursing home. They died, he said, and they’re still dying. It’s a tragedy.
But focusing on the actual facility where somebody died, as Cuomo and Zucker are doing, ignores the crossover between hospitals and nursing homes that very likely occurred due to Cuomo’s March 25 order. That’s the rub here.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Friday said that it would be up to the Justice Department to decide if Cuomo needs to be more fully investigated for New York’s nursing home death toll.
Even if the Justice Department does absolutely nothing, which wouldn’t be unexpected, it has to infuriate Cuomo that the question has even been raised.
Frankly, he’s got nobody to blame but himself.
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